


Never and Again

by SueG5123



Category: Dark Shadows (1966)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:22:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 53,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24472717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SueG5123/pseuds/SueG5123
Summary: Loosely based upon original DS writer Sam Hall's proposed conclusion to the series.
Relationships: Barnabas Collins/Julia Hoffman
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	1. No Sign of Light

She withdrew the syringe and pressed a square of gauze over the needle's intrusion.  
"Hold that for a minute."  
Chris Jennings nodded, flexing his hand experimentally. "Is this the last of the shots, Doctor?"  
Julia cast a glance at Barnabas, as if to ask his help in assuring the sullen dark-haired man. "The final treatment," she agreed.  
Chris stood and paced the length of the cellar room. "Then tomorrow night we'll know," he muttered.  
If another response was called for, she chose to ignore the hint. Barnabas had pressed her into service to work a cure for Jennings' curse, and she had acquiesced, more for Barnabas' sake than from any deep personal commitment. She had never shared Barnabas' righteous determination that Chris Jennings be saved from his fate; in fact, she had never particularly cared for Chris Jennings. Not that personal likes or dislikes should be permitted to interfere with treatment of a patient. All the same, though, this was not a case she would have accepted had it been left solely to her.  
And she knew full well that Chris would not have submitted to a cure for his strange affliction had it not been for Barnabas' persuasion. This moody young man was understandably bitter at his situation; to Julia's trained eye, though, there was more wrong with Chris Jennings than could be reversed by successful treatment. His brooding anger, impulsiveness, and barely concealed cruelty would not be salved with his release from the curse.  
That last thought caught her. What made her think of him as cruel, with or without the mark of the wolf?  
Was it because of his uncanny resemblance to his brother Tom?   
Tom Jennings had threatened her personally, nearly consigning her to his own dark existence as one of the undead. She would never be able to forget that.  
"Julia's treatments will work, Chris," Barnabas said quietly. "When the moon rises next, you will be free."  
"You're so certain?" Chris stopped his pacing and stood just inches from the barred opening of the door to the cell where he had spent the night of the last full moon. He kept his back to the other man, and his words, when they came, were tense and deliberately slow. "I cannot endure another transformation, Barnabas. If she fails..."  
Julia's head jerked around at the accusation. She wasn't going to let herself be blamed for the continuation of Chris' curse. But Barnabas held up a warning hand to her, and she choked back her retort, slamming a stainless steel tray to a table in lieu of a more appropriate response.  
"Let us wait another day to debate failures and successes," Barnabas soothed, intending his words for both physician and patient. "For this night, share my confidence."  
Chris turned, his expression stony. "I'll withhold my opinion until tomorrow night," he said evenly. Then he stalked from the room.

"My prescription for a trying evening," Barnabas murmured, handing Julia a glass of sherry. He took a chair across from her and sat studying the fire. When minutes went by without any comment from his companion, he cast an anxious glance at her.  
"Do not judge Chris by the man you saw tonight. He is... upset."  
She slammed her glass on the table. "Barnabas, has it occurred to you that he may not be worth salvaging?"  
He frowned and pulled back, unprepared for her savage assessment.  
Seeing the surprise on his face, she ran a hand over her forehead and relented. "I'm sorry -- I shouldn't have said that." She sighed. "It's just that I'm tired and Chris Jennings' attitude grates on me."  
"Is that all?"  
She looked up. "You're right. There is more." She paused. "Barnabas, some men resist salvation. They refuse to cling to life, casting themselves to the waves instead. I've seen it in so many patients." She shook her head in regret. "We can't hold ourselves responsible for their determination to embrace darkness." At his silence, she added, "Chris Jennings is not the man you were when you were suffering under your curse. He has allowed his whole life to be poisoned."  
"Was I not just as bitter?" Barnabas countered. "Did I not commit reprehensible acts?"  
"It was different," she maintained. "You rose above your circumstances, you fought your fate, you never..."  
"Lost hope? Have you forgotten those dark nights, Julia? I was nothing more than a maddened beast."  
She closed her eyes, denying the memory he summoned up. "You were always more."  
"You have forgotten," he said softly. "Perhaps... perhaps I should forget as well. But it is so hard..."  
"I'm sorry." And she was, for dredging up the pain of his own affliction, so recently ended and not by her efforts.  
Was that it? Was she still feeling the bitter regret of not having been the source of Barnabas' cure? Did Chris Jennings, with his undisguised mistrust of her ability, expose that still fresh wound?  
"My dear Julia," he said, as if reading her mind. "No one has done more for me than you. No one," he repeated, as if to underscore his meaning. "I have always had the greatest faith in your inestimable strength and talents, so there is no doubt in my mind that you will bring about Chris' release. As you did mine."  
Her throat constricted and she couldn't respond. Couldn't agree -- she knew far better. Couldn't disagree, although she knew she should.  
He reached to pat her hand reassuringly. "Come. Another sherry before I walk you back to Collinwood."

The next day was interminable. Julia made a pretense of reading but the pages were meaningless and her eyes kept drifting to her watch, to the wall clock, to the shadows on the floor, to any tangible reminder of the passing time.  
Tonight would be the redemption of Chris Jennings. Or the absolute condemnation.  
What she hadn't confessed to Barnabas the night before was her own doubt. Doubt that she could help Chris.  
It wasn't just her failure to cure Barnabas that worried her. He had found ultimate salvation through another, but she had been so close herself to discovering that lasting cure... it had only been a matter of time before she could have brought the same conclusion. His affliction was in her specialty.  
It had only been a matter of time.  
But Chris -- his spectacular metamorphosis was beyond her. Whereas Barnabas' vampirism was a matter for a hematologist -- admittedly, one with a very open mind -- Chris' lycanthropy required an expert in cellular structure. How could she know, how could she anticipate all the variables involved in a condition that went to the core of a living cell? His was an affliction inscribed in his very genetic make-up, not a mere aberrant infection to be eliminated.  
Barnabas expected too much of her. And she was loath to disappoint him. So she had taken on the impossible task of ridding Chris of the beast within.  
She hoped she could justify Barnabas' faith, but she was very much afraid she wouldn't.  
When the clock chimed eight, she left for the Old House.

She let herself in and put her bag on the table. She hoped no one would wonder why tonight, of all nights, she carried that small black satchel.  
Chris Jennings provided the only animation in the drawing room as he sat tensely kneading his knuckles.  
Barnabas stood before the fireplace, his back to the dark empty hearth. Her entry prompted a brief nod of recognition.  
She was immediately concerned. What if the treatment did fail? Would they have time to sequester Chris before the transformation was complete?  
"Wouldn't it be... safer... if we waited downstairs?" she asked.  
"No faith, Doctor?" Chris sneered.  
She turned on him with exasperation. "I see no need to make this experiment more dangerous than necessary."  
"Dangerous? To whom, Doctor? You? Me? Are you that certain of failure?" He strode over to confront her. "Or maybe you have a reason to expect the results..."  
"I have no reason to jeopardize your future, if that is your meaning," she returned hotly.  
"We shall be safe enough here," Barnabas interceded from across the room. "In any event, it is too late to move now." He gestured to the window, and Chris ran to it.  
The moon shone down full upon him. He closed his eyes, waiting for the inevitable agony that hallmarked the shifting of forms. It didn't come. He stared at his hands, finally rubbing one over the other in affirmation of their persistent normalcy.  
Barnabas sought Julia's eyes. "You've succeeded," he whispered as he moved to join her. "It worked." But as he drew closer he saw her expression change from intent concentration to horror.  
"Barnabas -- look!"  
Before them, Chris Jennings writhed, surprise and bitter understanding flashing in his expression before his features twisted in pain. Coarse thick hair began to shadow, then obscure his face; the outstretched hand knotted and convulsed with some inner strength; a feral growl escaped his parted lips. Accusation, betrayal, and contempt shone in his eyes.  
Julia stumbled to the foyer table, to the black bag that surely contained the only real freedom Chris Jennings would ever know. She reached for it -- and it fell from her grasp as Barnabas threw himself against her, offering his own body as shield from the man-wolf that was turning to them both.  
The thing froze, its glittering eyes locking with the dark and determined stare of the man before it. Suddenly, as if cornered, the beast threw back its lupine head and emitted a mournful, lingering howl. Then it turned and plunged shatteringly through the window.  
"I must go after him," Barnabas muttered, running for the door.  
"No!" When her plea had no effect, she added, "Wait! Take this!" And she pulled the last resort from the bag. A shiny revolver. "If you must go, take this."  
He didn't have to be told that it contained six silver bullets.  
"Julia! Why?" He meant, why this, why now, why had she found it necessary to have brought such a 'precaution' on this night. But he couldn't articulate those questions through his shock.  
Nonetheless, the unformed questions were reflected in his face. Then he reached for his cane and dashed from the house.  
And she, standing there, holding the heavy obscenity of a weapon, realized what a breach of faith she had committed. She let the pistol fall to the table and put her face in her hands.

Shortly before dawn, the front door was flung open and Barnabas staggered in, carrying the bloodied form of Chris Jennings. "Willie," he shouted, deliberately ignoring Julia's hovering.  
Willie joined them, looking at the body with amazement.  
"What happened?"  
"Help me get him upstairs."  
Willie threw Jennings' free arm over his neck, and he and Barnabas haltingly pulled the man up the steps. Julia followed but was stopped at the bedroom door by a haggard Barnabas. "Not now," he breathed heavily.  
"But he needs help," she insisted.  
"Not yours." Catching hurt on her face, he softened. "He is all right, Julia. I'll be down in a minute and we'll speak of it then."  
She went back to the drawing room to wait. When he at last came down the stairs, he clasped a hand on Willie's arm in a gesture of thanks before entering the room.  
"Barnabas! You're hurt!"  
He shook his head. "No," he said, noting the blood on his sleeve as if for the first time. "I'm fine."  
He didn't look fine, Julia thought. He was pale and distraught and blood was smeared over his clothes and hands.  
"Chris?"  
"He is uninjured."  
"But..." She gestured at the stains.  
He dropped wearily into a chair, and she hurried to him, probing for the wound that could have caused such visible evidence. It took only a few moments to confirm his statement that he was unharmed.  
"I don't understand."  
"I was too late to prevent the tragedy," he said through closed eyes. "You were right, Julia -- we should never have risked exposing Chris to the moonlight without some restraint, without some means to prevent him..."  
"What tragedy? If neither you nor Chris is injured..."  
Misery burned in his eyes when he again opened them. "When Chris fled, he went to the only person his terrified mind told him might be able to help --"  
"Sabrina," she whispered.  
He nodded slowly.  
"And she?..."  
"Dead," he said flatly. "I wanted to believe I could avert it... I tried..." He looked down at his hands.  
"It isn't your fault, Barnabas. I was the one... who failed Chris."  
He reached out and raised her face to his. "We all failed tonight, Julia," he murmured. "All of us."  
His words dampened whatever thrill she might have felt at his touch. He had not excused her culpability, merely extended it to blanket himself as well.

She mutely poured a cup of coffee and handed it to him. Barnabas had washed off the blood and changed into clean clothes.  
He would have to break the news to Chris in a few hours, he knew. That promised to be another ordeal. Perhaps he should ask Julia to administer a sedative to Chris, to prevent any violence in his grief.  
Barnabas sighed. He couldn't continue to ask her to perform these ministrations. Whatever oath of compassion she had sworn couldn't conceal the look of vague fear on her face everytime she saw Chris. At each meeting it must be as if she was confronted with the ghost of Tom Jennings. Not to mention the horror of last night's transformation. Enough. He couldn't prevail upon her any longer, knowing what it cost her.  
And she had been so very right about last night. She was the one who had urged caution in testing the cure. He had forced the calamity by discounting her concerns. She acted with precision and deliberation; it was his impatience that clumsily spoiled her efforts.  
Julia was always the one to talk sense to him. She had reminded him of that once, during one of their journeys to the past. With typical impatience, he had brushed off her comment -- but he couldn't deny the truth of it.  
He studied her silently; she was deep in thought, subdued by the events of the evening, and he was grateful for her distraction. It gave him time to think. Remember the nuances of their long friendship. The stormy adversarial beginning. The growing trust, strengthened by mutual sacrifices... sometimes weakened by his over reliance upon the past.  
There was so much between them now -- and still so much that was unsaid. He'd trusted his life to her on many occasions, and the lives of his family, and she had been faithful... stalwart... his friend.  
No... There was more than that.  
He'd known for some time now that the bond between them was deeper, stronger, more enduring than mere friendship. He needed Julia, needed her because without her he knew he wasn't be half the man he hoped to be. No one before -- Angelique, Roxanne, even Josette -- had so diminished him with her absence, sustained him with her presence.  
And still he was unable to put words to the realization. He would have to trust her to understand his long silence about his feelings. Trust her to continue her patient friendship. Trust her to know without truly knowing...  
...Until he could at last reward her with the truth.  
"Why do you stay?"  
Startled from her own thoughts, she looked up in confusion. "I'm sorry?..."  
"Why do you stay with me, Julia?"  
She smiled wanly and shook her head. "I still don't understand, Barnabas."  
"Evidently not," he allowed. He paused. Words still wouldn't come.  
"You're not making very much sense. You really should try to get some rest."  
"I should look in on Chris."  
"I can do that for you," she said, beginning to take charge. "Go to bed, Barnabas."  
He started up the stairs but turned suddenly. "I had hoped... that when Chris was returned to a normal existence... that I... that we..."  
"Yes?" she encouraged, puzzled by the declaration he was struggling to frame.  
He abandoned the thought, too weary to deal with it. There would be time later. He offered a tired smile instead. "You have been a good friend, Julia."  
More than a little confused by now, she nodded assent and watched him climb the stairs. What he had been trying to say sounded suspiciously like a farewell.

She was becoming frantic. It was late, and she couldn't find Barnabas, and there was something very important she had to tell him. Very important. A matter of life and death.  
Where was he?  
Where?--  
She started and woke, momentarily confused at her surroundings. Then she remembered. She was at the Old House, in one of the empty bedrooms. The panic of the dream retreated and she sat up.  
It must be quite late in the day, but the house was still silent. Chris and Barnabas were doubtless still sleeping off their exhaustion from the rigors of the night before. She should check them -- especially Chris. His inevitable accusation was not something she wished to face, but she would have to steel herself for it.  
And perhaps it was deserved. She had failed, hadn't she?  
Rising with a sigh, she went across the corridor to the room where Barnabas and Willie had deposited the unconscious Chris Jennings hours earlier.  
The bed was disheveled but empty.  
She must've slept later than she thought. Chris was probably downstairs by now, having resumed his relentless pacing, rehearsing his recriminations. She hoped that Barnabas had not yet broken the news of the night's tragedy; however much she would like to protest her own responsibility for Sabrina's death, she could not, and it was fitting that she be there to share the blame. Besides, Chris would likely be grief-stricken at the revelation -- he would need close observation, perhaps sedation.  
When she reached the drawing room, it was empty as well.  
Then, for some unknown reason, her eyes darted to the foyer table and she saw that the revolver was gone.  
The cry that rose to her lips froze there and she began to realize that she would, after all, be the means of Chris' release from the curse.

Willie Loomis eyed the untouched plate with resignation. He wanted to gently upbraid the other man for his self-neglect, but decided against it. Such tactics never worked with Barnabas.  
"Are you feelin' okay?" Willie asked. He'd never been able to shake a certain reluctance, a certain nervousness whenever he inquired about Barnabas' physical welfare; it was as if he feared the answer might be some gruesome regression to that former condition.  
"What?" Barnabas seemed surprised at the question. "Tired. I'm... tired."  
Even Willie could see that. Barnabas hadn't been himself since that Jennings guy had... well, died. That had been nearly two weeks earlier and Barnabas still looked as pale and stricken as the very evening Jennings' body had been found. Shot through the heart. Suicide.  
Bad break for Jennings, finding out that his girlfriend had been murdered -- the knowledge must've pushed him over the edge. Willie knew that Julia Hoffman had been treating Jennings. Another crazy, he shook his head, and Julia hadn't worked any miracles with him.  
Come to think of it, Julia hadn't been quite the same since that night either. Willie frowned at the remembrance. The long silence in the Old House that night. At the time, he'd written it off to grief at the news of the death -- but maybe there was more. Some chasm had opened between Julia and Barnabas, one perhaps even unrecognized by them.  
But Willie had noticed. Noticed Julia's sudden nervousness and studied avoidance of Barnabas. She had lingered at the Old House from some sense of duty, but had seemed grateful to leave. And to his great surprise she had called only once in the interval following that miserable night.  
And that visit had been a short one. It was farewell -- for a short while, she maintained, though Willie wasn't fooled. She was unconvincing in this lie. Whatever the reason she was returning to Wyndcliffe, it wasn't an urgent case as she said.  
Still subdued from the Jennings tragedy, Barnabas had accepted Julia's story at face value. No protest. No inquiry to the date of her return. If Willie hadn't known better, he might have taken Barnabas laissez faire attitude as uncaring.  
But Willie did know better.  
He studied the other man's hunched form through the growing shadows of the room. Grief -- or even guilt -- at Jennings' death should have waned by now. And if Barnabas was oblivious to the seeming permanence of Julia Hoffman's departure, what accounted for his depressed state?  
Willie licked his lips nervously. "Say, Barnabas, if you're tired, why doncha go upstairs?"  
Barnabas looked up, as if fully aware of Willie's presence for the first time. He finally sighed guiltily. "I should," he agreed but made no attempt to rise.  
This was getting to be too much. Willie set the tray down and stood in front of Barnabas, hands on his hips, wearing a look of patient expectance.  
Finally, the other man complied.

Hours later, a rumble of thunder dragged Barnabas from the twilight of sleep. Once roused, though, memory denied him the refuge of more sleep, forcing him instead to relive the events of the last few weeks.  
He could find no solace in Chris' death, not even in the fact that he may have at last found the peace that had eluded him in life. Chris took his own life not in the hope of that peace but in horror and remorse at his actions while in the beast's form. By doing so, Chris had shown honor, and courage -- a courage bitterly acknowledged by Barnabas, who so well knew the absence of it in himself. How many times had he committed deeds that frightened him, that wounded those closest to him? How often, in his former existence, had he contemplated the final release of death -- without the moral strength and determination to have sought it out?  
In fact, Chris' death mocked Barnabas twice over -- that Barnabas had failed to save him, and that Chris succeeded in conquering his curse where Barnabas had not.  
As Barnabas added the name of Chris Jennings to a mental roster, he wondered how many more would there be. Even without his own curse to blame, Barnabas was still party to the deaths of those around him. Who would be next -- Carolyn? Elizabeth? Roger?  
Not Julia, anyway. She at least was safe now, back at Wyndcliffe, away from the dangerous association with him. Barnabas wanted to be grateful for that, but couldn't. He'd been slow to comprehend the the enormity of her absence, creating such a great void within him, as if Julia had taken with her all of the hope and conviction that had driven him for the last few years.  
In the future, all would be darkness and emptiness. And even though solitude had been such a necessary part of his physical condition for so long that it had become almost a natural extension of him, it was the prospect of this new loneliness that was most disturbing.  
Lulled by such depressing thoughts, he drowsed for a few minutes, then snapped back awake as a fleeting dream ended.  
"Julia?" he asked of the heavy stillness of the room.  
There was no response. No -- of course not. Julia had been summoned to Wyndcliffe to consult on some emergency case.  
He felt a sudden, overpowering need to talk to another human being, anyone, just to ward off the emptiness.  
"Willie?"  
He waited, then called again.  
Still there was no answer.  
Even Willie gone? Where?  
Finally, sleep returned, but it did not erase his frown.

"Elizabeth? This is Julia. I got a message through my service that someone from Collinwood had been trying to reach me."  
"Oh, Julia," Elizabeth sighed with relief. "I'm so glad to hear your voice. We've been trying to find you since yesterday."  
"What's happened?" Julia asked, alert to a sudden sense of foreboding.  
"It's Barnabas -- he's ill. When we couldn't get you, we called in Doctor Pierce from town. But he wants to move Barnabas for some tests and Willie has practically barricaded the Old House, saying that he won't permit it until you agreed."  
"What sort of illness? I mean, I appreciate Willie's faith in my abilities, but Dr. Pierce is a practicing physician and I..." She let her voice trail off, uncomfortably reminded of her last attempt to cure the body instead of the mind.  
"It's some kind of fever. Dr. Pierce doesn't really know for sure." Elizabeth paused. "I'm going to the Old House now. Can I tell Willie anything from you?"  
"Tell him I'm on my way." And she hung up the phone without saying goodbye.

When next he came to himself, it was as a gradual awareness of light and shadow. For an unknown length of time, he simply watched the shadows twist and lengthen from the corners of the room, darkness seeming to drip from the moldings, coating the walls and washing everything in the room in a cool mantle of grays.  
Barnabas felt a strange lightheadedness. Aware he would be unsteady if he even but rose to sit in the bed, he lay quietly... watching... watching... as layers of shadows coalesced into a familiar profile.  
"It isn't time yet, Barnabas. But soon. Soon."  
Seeing Chris Jennings again, even in this spectral form, didn't alarm Barnabas. It merely confused him.  
"I don't understand," he mumbled, reaching toward the figure before him.  
"You will."  
Color and form began to dissolve around Barnabas, collapsing the apparition and plunging him into other fevered imaginings.

"Doug Pierce," the sandy haired man introduced himself. "You must be Dr. Hoffman."  
"Julia Hoffman," she acknowledged before casting a glance at Willie. "Where...?"  
Willie broke the lock of his crossed arms and jerked a thumb over his shoulder.  
"Mr. Collins has been treated by you in the past...?" Pierce began as he followed her up the steps.  
"Yes... in the past," she allowed. "What is your diagnosis?"  
Pierce tried to leap ahead of her to open the door -- the gentlemanly thing to do, instinct told him -- but she never paused to permit him the obliged duty. He reached the door as she had already entered the room.  
"Um, it's difficult to say with any certainty. Tell me -- do you know if he's ever visited the tropics?"  
Julia never turned from her examination of the pale man before her. "I believe he... once traveled to Martinique. But that was a very long time ago..."  
Dr. Pierce considered this information but finally shook his head. "No, I suspect something with a short incubation period -- probably something more equatorial."  
"Some tropical fever?"  
"Yes, but how did he contract it?"  
She didn't say anything but moved swiftly over Barnabas, noting the sheen of perspiration, rapid respiration, and dilated pupils. None of the symptoms was unfamiliar to her, but, in tandem, they indicated something quite beyond her ken.  
"Have you called a specialist?"  
Pierce shrugged. "As you know, specialists hardly get to backwater towns like Collinsport -- let alone make house calls. I was trying to transfer Mr. Collins to a facility where we could hope to get a consult with an epidemiologist..."  
"...But you were prevented until I could be contacted?"  
He spread his hands helplessly.  
She handed him a card. "Call this number. I believe it is the facility that will persuade even the most recalcitrant specialist."  
He took the card and looked up at her in surprise. How could she have so correctly anticipated the peculiar requirements of the case? Understanding that he now had the tacit approval he needed to pursue treatment, he left to find a phone.  
Julia, meanwhile, sat on the edge of the bed. Finding the basin of water that someone -- Willie probably -- had been using to sponge Barnabas' face, she wrung the cloth and pressed it to the feverish brow before her.  
"Barnabas, what happened? Is this what worry over Chris Jennings has done to you?" She faltered upon another thought. "Is it possible that Angelique has returned...?"  
She stared at him for a reaction, but he was in the coils of unconsciousness and gave no indication of assent or denial. He was utterly oblivious to her cooling touch, motionless but the for rise and fall of his chest.  
"You're gonna let him be taken away?"  
Unseen, unheard, Willie had entered the room and stood at the door, one hand propped against the doorjamb.  
"Willie!" She fought back the brief start. "He needs attention beyond my ability."  
"Are you sure?"  
"What do you mean?" she asked, beginning to understand that Willie had not insisted on her presence merely to lend approval to a plan of treatment.  
"Doncha remember the last time Barnabas got sick... so sick that we thought... we thought he was..." He seemed unable to finish, and that formality seemed unnecessary anyway.  
It must be Angelique!  
But when she whispered the name, Willie shook his head with a pained expression. "I was thinkin' of Adam. Helpin' Adam saved Barnabas once before -- why wouldn't it work again?"  
Of course!  
_Adam!_  
Julia shot Willie a look of surprised gratitude.

Julia's hand flew to beat at the door again, but it was opened by a puzzled Professor Stokes. "Julia? What an unexpected..."  
She bolted past him to stamp impatiently in his foyer.  
He closed the door behind her, adding, "Come in, please," under his breath, as wry commentary on her hurry. "Is there something I can do for you?"  
"Adam -- if you know his whereabouts, tell me."  
Stokes shrugged in amusement. "I wish I could, if only to prolong your visit. But, alas, I've heard nothing from him for many months." Seeing her sag at this revelation, he grabbed her elbow and led her into his study. "Julia, what is it?"  
"I must find Adam."  
He settled her into a chair and stood looking at her with concern.   
"May I ask why this sudden change of heart? I rather had the feeling that you and the others at Collinwood would be grateful never to hear his name again."  
"Barnabas is very ill..."  
The professor's eyebrows shot up. "Oh? I'm sorry to hear that." He reached for the decanter of sherry and poured a glass. "But how does this concern Adam?"  
"You know as well as I that their lives are linked. What is happening to Barnabas is also affecting Adam, wherever he is."  
"A link I've never fully understood," Stokes muttered as he pressed the glass into her hand. "But even if you were to find Adam, what matter would it make? Could you not treat Barnabas directly here, with the finer facilities and equipment, and provoke the same results?"  
She dropped her head in unspoken admission of defeat. "Barnabas isn't responding to anything that's been tried so far." After a moment, she lifted her eyes to his in earnest appeal. "Elliot, please help me find Adam. He is the key to save Barnabas, I just know it."  
Save Barnabas? Then this was quite serious.  
"Julia -- this means so much to you?"  
"Everything, Elliot. I'm so afraid that it's my only chance..."  
"Then leave it to me, my dear. If Adam can be found, I shall find him for you."

Barnabas thrashed again at the grayness that enveloped him.  
He called for Julia.  
In a thought that chilled him, he wondered if perhaps she wouldn't come. Was it possible that she had finally abandoned him to his fate? Had even Julia given up?  
No!  
Julia had never faltered before. Not under Angelique's threats. Not even when Roxanne had imperiled her very existence.  
But now...  
Where was she when his need for her was so great, when he knew, intuitively knew that his future depended upon her?  
He called her name once more before lapsing back into dreamless sleep.

Willie yawned and stretched in the chair when she entered the bedroom. He was sorry to have been found napping at Barnabas' bedside... but there hadn't been much time for rest these last few days and he felt obliged to sleep on a catch-as-catch-can basis. Barnabas seemed to have scarcely moved, so Willie didn't feel as if he'd missed anything.  
Julia had no words for him as she bent to her patient, so Willie opened a dialogue.  
"Is he better?"  
He was instantly sorry for the hopeful thought. Her expression told him all he needed to know.  
"Well?..."  
She exhaled a pent up breath and closed her eyes wearily. "Willie, the fever's climbing. There's not much I can do here."  
He nodded and swallowed. "Okay. So you're gonna take him to Wyndcliffe?"  
"I'm not even sure that will help." She walked over to the window, the morning sun seeming to accentuate the hollows in her expression. "Elliot Stokes is working to find Adam. Doctor Pierce is trying to contact a specialist. I'm at their mercy -- I wait."  
Willie cast a quick look at the bed. "This ain't like the other times, Julia. You've gotta do something."  
She spun around in anger. "Weren't you listening? I was telling you that there is nothing I can do now but wait! Do you think it's any easier for me?"  
"I'm sorry."  
Seeing the anxiety her harsh response had precipitated, she instantly regretted her outburst. "Willie, tell me -- how did this begin? Were there any visitors?" -- she couldn't let go of the idea of Angelique. "Anything out of the ordinary?"  
"Not a thing. He was real out of sorts by that Jennings guy killin' himself, and then you left..." Willie caught a glimpse of pain on her face. "Why did you go, Julia?"  
She moved back to the bedside and stared down sadly at the patient. "It just seemed time to leave, Willie. I don't expect you to understand."  
"Maybe I do."  
She looked up in surprise. "You do?"  
"You were lookin' for somethin' that you didn't think was here anymore."  
She pressed her lips together in a grimace and turned away. In his ignorance, Willie Loomis came closer to articulating what she'd felt than all the volumes of words at her demand.  
She hadn't understood completely all the reasons, but leaving Collinwood -- leaving Barnabas -- had suddenly seemed a necessity after Chris Jennings' death. Instead of being the means of his salvation, she had been the conduit of his death, and she couldn't begin to ask Barnabas' forgiveness for her failure.  
Failure. The word hadn't even been in her vocabulary until recently. Now it dogged her relentlessly. Failure. Or fear of it.  
She looked down again at Barnabas and felt the overwhelming fear of failure anew.

This time, when he looked up, he saw Magda peering down at him.  
"You are ill. You will die maybe." She gave a theatrical shrug. "But maybe not. Your stars are still changing, Barnabas Collins -- still changing, and even I cannot see the end."  
Shaking her head, drawing her crocheted shawl closer around her shoulders, she walked around the foot of the bed and up the opposite side. "You tried to help my grand-nephew, I know that. And I will try to help you, if there is time -- and if you will understand my words." She looked inquiringly at him.  
He had great difficulty forming the few words that made his response. "I -- I will try..."  
"Listen to me, Barnabas Collins. That which you fear is that which will destroy you." She leaned closer. "Fear nothing -- and you will be invincible."  
Barnabas blinked in confusion. Had he been thinking more clearly, he doubtless would have felt ill-used. Her advice made no sense -- just a bland aphorism. There was no meaning in it for him, and it made him dismiss her as just another puzzling dream borne of his feverish imagination.  
"No more," he murmured wearily, and the vision of Magda faded.

She didn't seem to tire of the repetition, soaking the cloth, wringing it until her knuckles whitened, using it to trace away the dewy perspiration on Barnabas' face.  
Stokes watched quietly for several minutes before moving forward and stopping those patient hands. "You're tired," he whispered, feeling the simplicity of the observation pale to inanity as it left his lips. "Put that down. Come with me." He led her to the corridor, mildly surprised at her docile acceptance.  
Once beyond the sick room, she appeared disoriented. "What time is it?"  
"Late." He paused. "Julia, I've found Adam."  
"Where--?"  
Stokes reached an arm about her and guided her to another room. "The knowledge will keep for an hour or two. I've already made the arrangements to get us there as quickly as possible, but first you must rest." He hurried to stop her next words of protest. "Now, Julia, you'll be of little use to Adam -- or Barnabas -- if you arrive in your present state."  
She sank down into a chair. "I suppose you're right," she admitted. "But I have to pack -- have to get ready..."  
He nodded firmly. "Yes. But don't worry about any of that. Elizabeth is attending to those details, and Willie Loomis can look after Barnabas in our absence."  
"No," she said dully. "Even I can't look after Barnabas now." She looked up to Stokes and reached for his hand, desperation plain upon her face. "Barnabas needs a professional environment -- not this pathetic house. I called Wyndcliffe. Promise me that you'll transfer him there."  
Stokes was momentarily nonplused. "But I must go with you to find Adam," he sputtered.  
"Promise me, Elliot."  
He sighed. "Very well, although this is against my better judgment." He stood behind her and moved his hands onto her shoulders, astonished that they could bear the burden that had been forced upon them. The lives of two men, worlds apart. The fears and hopes of friends, family. And now, the journey -- wherever it would take her, she would go alone.  
Elliot Stokes stood there until she fell into a light sleep, glad that she never saw the irritating moisture rimming his own eyes.


	2. A Price to Pay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Desperate to save Julia, Barnabas finds the only hope in a strange negotiation with Nicholas Blair...

Professor Elliot Stokes rubbed his eyes at the sunlight and lit the Chinese cigarette. One drag and he discarded it -- even as badly as he needed the stimulant, that weed was too vile to smoke.;

He leaned against the cafeteria's window, overlooking the front of the hospital. Despite the early hour, a swarm of people already infested the sidewalks along Nathan Road. Traffic inched along, bright red double decker buses and Rolls Royces caught in the same gooey pace. Sounds of life, oddly stale and annoying on this foreign summer's morning. Stokes felt totally detached from the thousands who cohabited this street; they were alive, perhaps unconscious of the fact, but alive. His thoughts were with one who might not be for much longer.

Julia Hoffman looked very unnatural in the hospital bed. Somehow smaller, frailer. Certainly not in control of this situation as she was with most others.

She didn't look peaceful, either.

The convulsions of the previous night had ceased, though Stokes was uncertain whether that was due to the ministrations of the medical staff or the sheer exhaustion of the patient. She still twitched and uttered strange half sentences, but the few words he caught were meaningless to him.

Frustrated by his own helplessness and weariness, he lashed out at the nurse. "Get Dr. Xsiu -- now," he hissed. "There's got to be something more to be done."

The homely nurse scurried out of the room, and Stokes threw himself into a chair. How many more days would he have to spend here, watching the spiraling decline of his friend? She'd been coherent enough to call him when she realized she'd been infected, but by the time Stokes reached her side, twenty four hours and twelve thousand miles later, she'd lapsed into a semi-comatose state. And here he was, summoned but unable to act; Julia hadn't bothered to write down her treatment of Adam. There was no way to know what she had done, what drugs she had used to treat his illness. In fact, there was little knowledge of what illness it was.

Dr. Xsiu was the resident expert in tropical diseases at the Hong Kong Royal Hospital and he appeared stymied at Julia's symptoms. He'd eliminated the obvious -- malaria, Kala-azar, Dengue fever -- as well as some of the more obscure. But, ultimately, he seemed as puzzled as Stokes himself, watching minutely to see if the antibiotics, administered largely by trial and error, had any effect.

Adam, meanwhile, had staggered away into the anonymity of Hong Kong, cloaked by the crush of humanity. Whatever Julia had used to miraculously bring him back from the brink of death was now a secret known only to her.

Dr. Xsiu, white coated and taller than the average Chinese, strode into the room. "Some change in condition, Professor?" he asked, a faint British accent clinging to his words.

"No." Stokes set his jaw. "There's no improvement, nothing. Isn't there something more you could try?"

A polite smile froze on the doctor's lips. "You know we are trying everything."

Stokes dropped his accusing gaze. "I know," he said softly, reluctantly. He hurt himself with the admission, as if not committing it to words made it less true. "But I can't just watch this..."

Dr. Xsiu moved to the foot of the bed and consulted the record. "There is little more I can do at the present time, Professor. I am sorry." He made a curt motion and uttered a Mandarin phrase; the nurse left the room on some mission. "We can try more of the atropine, but it will only treat the symptoms, not effect any real improvement."

Stokes was drowsing when Barnabas and Willie came in, and he blinked twice to make sure he wasn't imagining their presence.

"Barnabas? What are you doing here?"

But the other man walked past him to the hospital bed. It was Willie who explained. "I couldn't keep him away," he gestured helplessly.

Still leaning heavily on his cane for support, Barnabas stared down at Julia. The journey had been exhausting, especially in his weakened condition, but even the long hours of the trip spent agonizing over her had not prepared him for the reality. She looked so pale, so still, so close to a deeper, final sleep.

"What do the doctors say?" Barnabas asked, still not removing his gaze from Julia.

Stokes massaged his neck. "As little as possible, as is their wont. They don't know what the illness is, so they don't know how to treat it. Oh, they're trying some drugs, but very generic stuff. Only one person knows what we're supposed to be fighting... and she can't tell us," he finished, _sotto voce_.

Barnabas began slipping off his coat. "Willie, take the professor to his hotel. He needs rest." Barnabas looked at Stokes meaningfully. "Thank you -- for staying until I could get here."

"You don't look that well yourself," Stokes commented.

Barnabas grimaced. "Blame that on the journey. I assure you that I'm recovering -- even though I don't recommend one's first travel by air immediately following a serious illness." He turned his attention back to Julia. "Whatever she did for Adam had a positive effect on me."

"If you're sure." Stokes hesitated a moment, almost reluctant to turn over his vigil to the other man. Finally, he shrugged and left without protest, Willie leading the way.

Barnabas pulled a chair to the bed. "I'm here, Julia," he whispered, taking her fevered hand in his. "I'm here. You who have always been there for me -- I am at last here for you."

When Willie returned, a few hours later, he found Barnabas dozing, still holding Julia's hand.

Nudging Barnabas, Willie extended the cup. "Coffee. You need it."

Willie watched Barnabas sip the tepid brew, thinking that he didn't look all that much stronger than the previous week, when the same fever had ravaged him. Willie had worried then that Barnabas might not survive -- ironic, to consider that one could endure two centuries fettered to the cruelest of afflictions and, only days after being released from that fate, be felled by something so vicious and unspeakably common.

"How do you feel?"

"Tired," Barnabas admitted. "But I'm fine. Don't worry for me."

"You need some rest, too, you know."

"In a little while."

Willie decided not to push his luck. "Any change while I was gone?"

Barnabas sighed and shifted in the chair. "She seemed to waken once, when the nurse was changing the bottles." He gestured to the I.V. hanging above. "But I couldn't get any reaction from her. She acted as if I wasn't here."

"She probably didn't know, Barnabas. You didn't remember too much when you were sick."

Barnabas rose and paced across the room. "But I thought -- I thought that if she knew I came, if she knew I had recovered...

"It isn't enough just to be here," Barnabas continued, his tone changing to self-reproach. "There has to be something I can do. When I was ill, she acted."

"Yeah, but she knew what to do," Willie reminded him. "You aren't a doctor. Barnabas, I think you're doin' more than you know by bein' here. She'd know that, too."

Barnabas looked surprised as Willie put a steadying hand on his shoulder. "Your first thought was right. You bein' here for her would make all the difference in the world."

"Barnabas?" Julia's eyes, glittering with fever and unnaturally large, focused on him. "What are you doing here?"

He went immediately to her side.

Her eyes darted around the room without recognition. "Where am I?"

"In the hospital. You're very ill." He took her hand in his. "Julia -- you must tell me how to help you, what illness this is and how I can fight it."

She sighed softly. "I can't do it," she murmured. "This time, I can't help. I don't know what to do."

He frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"...My fault, didn't see it in time, didn't realize the danger..." she continued, unaware of his question, now seemingly unaware of his very presence.

He was chilled at the realization of her delirium. She was speaking in disjointed phrases; he couldn't catch all the low words, but the tone was unmistakably self-accusing. "Julia," he exhorted, catching her hand and holding it still. "Julia, look at me."

She responded to the command in his voice but her eyes, when they met his, were clouded with confusion.

"Julia, this is very important. Tell me what I can do." His voice caught suddenly in his throat. 

"It is you," she whispered, obviously struggling to concentrate.

He nodded.

Another weary sigh shook her slight form. "I didn't know if it would work in time. Failure seemed closer than success."

"But you did succeed! Tell me how, so that we might help you."

She closed her eyes for a moment, frowned, and reopened them. "Too costly, too late," she murmured, not focusing on Barnabas.

Despite the absent look, he felt suddenly accused. "It has been costly," he admitted, quietly. "Knowing me -- knowing who and what I was. The price I've exacted from you has been dear, indeed."

He paused to brush a few errant strands of hair from her face. "Oh, Julia, life itself is costly and I'm indebted to you many times over for my own. For the perils you risked on my behalf. Free me one last time: Stay with me. I promise I shall never ask another thing of you."

She slipped away into a netherworld of dreams but he continued, refusing to acknowledge that her conscious mind had left him.

"I've never told you. Perhaps I never realized it before... But I... love you," he said slowly. "It's been a careless love, I know -- unthinking, unplanned, untold. Not what you might have wanted, certainly not what you deserved. It has been knowledge stolen -- I was unwilling to pay the price. Julia, you've given so much -- endured all the misery I heaped upon you without a whisper of complaint. Being there for me has exacted a terrible cost from you. Forgive me." 

He bowed his head. "And now I have allowed your life to be jeopardized. I won't let you be taken from me," he said, his voice hardening. He reached out to stroke her hot face. "You have suffered too much as my friend. Have I the right to ask more of you?" 

He was silent for a few seconds. Then he set his jaw in resolute defiance. "I claim that right, regardless. Live for me, Julia."

Stokes felt stiff and weary despite the long sleep. It was before noon and he decided to walk to the hospital to work out the kinks in his limbs and collect his thoughts.

"Good day, Professor Stokes."

Stokes started at the mention of his name. He turned to see who had joined him.

"You don't recognize me?" The other man exclaimed in mock dismay. "I'm wounded. Surely I was more memorable than that."

"Blair," Stokes growled.

The man, bearded now, smiled. "You do recall."

"What do you want?" Stokes was more than wary; it surely was no coincidence that Nicholas Blair happened to be here.

"Ah, Professor, the avarice in your nature shouldn't color everyone's motives. I am here... for my health, you might say."

Stokes' eyes narrowed as he regarded the other man. "Strange that you would regard Hong Kong as a healthful environment, Mr. Blair."

"A threat?"

"An observation."

Blair laughed soundlessly. "Permit me to make an observation of my own, then." The good humor was wiped from his face. "You need me, Professor."

"How would I need you?"

Blair touched a hand to his forehead and closed his eyes in an exaggerated imitation of one who reads minds. "You are very worried about someone. Someone who is failing." He opened his eyes. "Am I correct?"

Stokes looked to both sides and before his gaze returned to center, he had grabbed Blair's lapels and was forcing him against the stone wall. "If you know something, say it, because I've lost whatever patience I may have once had."

The smaller, dapper man twisted from Stokes' grip and straightened his shirtfront. "An ill-advised move, Professor." He glowered for a moment, then that damnable smile returned. "Of course, I'm prepared to be understanding. This must be a very trying time for... all of you."

Stokes gritted his teeth, hostage to recalcitrant curiosity.

"Yes, yes," Blair murmured. "A very trying time. It is a frustrating feeling to watch those we care for suffer... and not be able to alleviate that pain. Dear Doctor Hoffman. Such an intelligent woman. I understand she is quite ill."

"Say what you mean and say it quickly," Stokes warned.

"Simply this." Blair produced a vial from his pocket.

Stokes was surprised and didn't try to disguise it. "What is it?"

"What you've been looking for. The substance that will revive the good doctor." Blair put the vial in Stokes' hand. "I wanted to ensure you had it."

Hope flared and died in a millisecond. "Why would you want to help Julia?" Stokes asked suspiciously.

Blair shrugged. "One of the few people at Collinwood who was worthy of admiration. She had a certain... quality." He folded Stokes' fingers around the vial. "For Dr. Hoffman," he said, with an odd look of sincerity.

Stokes opened his hand and squinted at the tube of clear liquid. "What --?" 

"A mild restorative that is within my power to give."

"And the price?"

"Suspicious to the end, aren't you? Very well, you are correct -- there are terms, but they are inconsequential compared to the benefit to be derived from this, ah, medicine. One day I may ask a favor of you. When that day comes, I wish you to remember what has transpired here."

"What do you want?"

"Professor," Blair admonished, "that is in the future. Rest assured, it will be a minor concern to you."

Stokes was infuriated at the thought of a bargain with Blair. Who knew what this blackguard might ask of him? And yet -- he stared again at the vial in his hand -- might this not be the only way to save Julia?

"Why are you doing this?"

"Again you ask. Once more I'll tell you -- Dr. Hoffman was no enemy of mine. She helped me once..." Nicholas Blair stroked his beard appreciatively at the memory, then made as if to move around Stokes.

Stokes blocked him. "How do I know this won't harm her? It might be poisoned."

"You try my patience, Professor," Blair said, his expression clouding again. "Take the solution or don't. Suit yourself." He adjusted his tie and glanced toward the sun, now quite high in the sky. "Good day."

"I'm glad you're here," Willie greeted Stokes as he entered the green tiled hospital room. He gestured at Barnabas, "He's exhausted. I gotta get him outta here and somewhere to rest."

Stokes looked over to the man slumped in a chair, still close to the patient's bed. "Any improvement?" he asked, indicating Julia.

Willie's downcast eyes said it all. "She woke up for a while. Didn't seem like she knew where she was. He talked to her for a little while and then she dropped back off to sleep."

Barnabas stirred and stood. The weariness of a journey and a vigil showed upon his haggard face.

Stokes extended a key to Willie. "I foresaw this and engaged you a room at the same hotel."

Willie took the key gratefully and looked to his master.

In turn, Barnabas studied Stokes. "Summon me if there's the slightest change."

Stokes nodded and saw them out, deciding -- for now, at least -- to keep the encounter with Nicholas Blair to himself.

Willie slept fitfully and woke angry -- furious at the alarm clock ringing at him. He shut it off with a slam and sank back into the covers, intending to enjoy the luxurious feel of the bed. But reality came flooding back and his eyes wouldn't close. 

For a long time he lay looking at the ceiling of the room.

When the phone rang, it was almost expected. He reached over with a sigh to take the precautionary wake up call. As an after-thought, he dialed room service and ordered something to eat. Breakfast would've seemed appropriate -- his stomach remembered it was still on Maine time -- but he relented in favor of something more suiting the hour. Eight thirty. Dinner.

After showering, he padded through the common area of the suite and rapped on the opposing door. "Barnabas? You awake?"

He heard a muffled sound and walked away, satisfied his charge had been roused. When the room service arrived, he signed the bill and called again for Barnabas.

"You better hurry," he yelled, adding to himself, "'cause I'm hungry enough to eat it all." But he waited.

Barnabas entered, looking no better for the rest. He pulled up a chair and allowed Willie to pour a cup of coffee.

"You sleep okay?"

Barnabas ignored the question. "Any message from Stokes?"

Willie shook his head. "Have some," he said, removing a lid from a steaming plate. "You oughta eat somethin'."

"When did this happen?"

Barnabas gestured at the plastic tent surrounding Julia. "I told you to call if anything changed."

"You could have done nothing, and you desperately needed the rest," Stokes replied.

The look of anger and betrayal was unmitigated. "Nonetheless, I depended upon you, Stokes."

"She began to have some difficulty breathing this afternoon. Dr. Xisu decided to put her on oxygen to ease the distress."

Still not mollified, Barnabas scowled. "You had no right --"

"Neither have you," Stokes rejoined, his voice warming. "I find your sudden concern for Julia's welfare completely mystifying. You've never indicated an interest before. Far from it, in fact."

Across the room, Willie could see Barnabas' hands clench in anger. He moved forward in alarm. "This ain't the time..." he began.

"Perhaps it should be the time," Stokes responded in a carefully measured voice. "You have never given..."

"I warn you, Stokes." Barnabas' voice trembled with fury. "Do not presume further."

"Your righteous indignation is lost on me, Barnabas. Your arrogance has forfeit any sincere feelings you may have once harbored."

Willie caught Barnabas as he lunged forward. "Not here!"

Barnabas fixed Willie with a harsh glare as the latter held him.

Contemptuous of the threat, Stokes continued. "If it hadn't been for you, she wouldn't be here now. You are as responsible for this situation as if you had deliberately allowed her to be infected."

At this, Barnabas wrenched free of Willie's grasp and struck out.

Stokes recoiled. He rubbed a hand along his jaw, feeling the tingling turn to ache. "That's it?" he taunted. "Is your pride soothed, or will it take another blow?"

Willie forced himself between the two men. "Stop it! This ain't gonna solve nothin'!"

Barnabas said nothing but his gaze was venomous.

Stokes took a step back, cautious but not cowed. "Will it hurt your pride further to know that I have the cure?" He pulled something from his jacket pocket.

"What is that?" The voice was steely cold.

"A -- restorative," Stokes answered, remembering Nicholas Blair's euphemism. 

"Where did you get it?"

Stokes shrugged. He saw no point in lying. "Nicholas Blair."

"Blair! And you contemplate giving that to her?" Barnabas was aghast.

"Unless you have another plan," Stokes snapped. "It appears to be the last hope."

"No!" Barnabas uttered in a hoarse whisper. "No. There must be another way."

"You don't realize what's happening, do you? Julia is dying! If there was a time for outlandish schemes, this is it."

"I forbid it."

Stokes laughed bitterly. "You forbid it. Very good. It always comes back to you, doesn't it, Barnabas? What you want. What you think is best. Well, you had better realize this: Julia will not be with us in the morning unless something is done this very night."

"Not this way. Not with the 'help' of Nicholas Blair. He can't be trusted."

"I agree with you." Stokes' smile turned amiable. "I agree completely. But we're at the point where a leap of faith is required. For her sake," he gestured to the bed, "I'm willing to make that leap. Are you?"

"Where is he? Tell me where I can find Blair!"

"There's no time, you fool! We have to trust him." Stokes turned toward the bed.

Barnabas looked around helplessly, wondering how to win enough time to find Nicholas Blair. "Willie -- watch him," meaning Stokes. "Don't let him..." 

Willie watched silently as Barnabas, instructions given, dashed from the room.

Stokes moved closer, still rubbing his jaw. "Damn the man!"

"You shouldn't have provoked him."

"You, too? Don't either of you understand? It's too late for anything else." He looked at the vial and then to Willie.

"What's Blair get outta this?"

"Finally -- an intelligent question. A perceptive question. Yes, Willie, you're right. There's a price to this..." He thought for a few moments, then sighed heavily. "You'd better go find Barnabas, in case this does fail. He would want to be here... at the end."

When Willie tensed, Stokes added, "Forget trying to stop me, Willie. He's wrong. This is the only chance we have now."

Willie scanned the street. All the millions in Hong Kong seemed to be awake and in view now. How was he going to find one man?

Someone brushed against him and Willie reached convulsively for his pocket. Wallet still there. Good. He was just jumpy -- jumpy, that's all. He shook his head. Too many people.

Where would Barnabas have gone?

Where he concluded he would find Nicholas Blair.

But where was that?

Blair had always reminded Willie of a rat -- a slick-whiskered, shifty-eyed piece of human vermin. With that image in mind, Willie turned in the direction of the harbor. The Star Ferry Wharf seemed the perfect place. Ancient, dilapidated buildings lined the area behind the ferry's berth. Just the place for a prudent rodent.  
The ferry disgorged thousands at ten minute intervals, seeming to ebb and flow with the regularity of a human tide.

Wedging his way through the crowd, Willie searched the fronts of the buildings. Old buildings, but not uninhabited -- not in a place where space was such a precious commodity. Despite the shabbiness of the exteriors, these buildings were home to hundreds, minuscule shops and restaurants on the ground level and apartments filled to capacity above. He checked each shop and waved off pidgin English sales entreaties.

No good. He'd have to think of something else. He looked around.

The ferry met the pilings again with a heavy thunk. Another wave of people washed over the land.

From Victoria Peak, the jagged hilltop overlooking Hong Kong, the lights of the city looked like jewels spilled carelessly across a crazy patchwork of squares and rectangles. But unlike the weary streets below, this touchstone of tourism was deserted in the dark hours of the morning.

The cabby had acted surprised that Willie wanted to get out anyway, but cheerfully accepted the pink monopoly money that passed for dollars before speeding away. A quiet stone pavilion was inset into the hill and Willie hurried toward it. Stone Chinese dogs ringed the square, their shadows muted by the moonless night. There was another shadow, more crisply outlined.

The shade moved.

Willie's eyes searched Barnabas' face. "You find him?"

Barnabas pointed toward the harbor below. "Not in time."

In the distance, a tiny collection of lights moved persistently toward the greater blackness of open sea.

"I was too late," Barnabas added, his voice edged with the hardness of realization. "By the time I thought to consult the booking agents, Blair had gone."

"Why're you here?" Willie asked.

An bitter smile twisted Barnabas' mouth. "It seemed fitting," he said, without further explanation. He stared upward at the stale light of cold stars.

"Let's go back, Barnabas."

"How did you leave her?"

Willie frowned, remembering Stokes' admonition. "We need to be getting back."

Barnabas said nothing.

"C'mon, let's get out of here."

Finally, Barnabas spoke, his words so soft and low that Willie had to strain to hear him even in the quiet of the night. "Don't you understand? I was too late. I was unwilling. I was afraid, Willie. I allowed Stokes to usurp me. He's done what I should have done -- acted to save her -- as she acted to save me. Others have paid my debts." Barnabas looked back up at the brilliant sky. "Once again, I'm too late."

Several moments passed in silence.

Quietly, Willie said, "I don't know if there's gonna be enough time. I think even the professor doesn't know." He frowned again. "I don't know anything about bein' brave -- I know a lot about bein' scared, though. And then I think about how she came to you, knowing what you were -- how she stayed even after you threatened her life..."

"You don't have to remind me."

Willie considered for a moment then continued. "Maybe. But maybe she felt the same way you do now when that Dr. Lang began treatin' you. Scared. Late."  
Barnabas shook his head emphatically. "No. Altogether different."

"Why is it different? She wanted to be the one to help you -- but it wasn't her, in the end."

"It was!" Barnabas whirled suddenly. "Lang, Angelique -- their intervention would have never been possible without..." He stopped, beginning to understand.

Willie let his gaze wander past Barnabas to the starry panorama above. "I keep tellin' you, bein' there is enough. And if the professor is wrong and she only opens her eyes once more, seein' you is the only thing that's gonna make her feel easier."

When there was no response, he continued. "We don't seem to be too much different from any of those stars, when you think about it. Dr. Hoffman shined the way she was supposed to when she helped you. Professor Stokes -- well, he only got approached 'cause this Nicholas Blair thinks he can blackmail him later. The professor, he can't shine the way you have to..."

"How is that?"

Willie let a soft smile touch his lips. "In her eyes, Barnabas."

Stokes looked again at his watch. Five-thirty. Something should have happened by now. It had been nearly four hours since he'd administered Blair's potion -- and, yet, no change.

He ground his fist into his hand. Barnabas had been right! At best, this had been a cruel hoax... At worst... well, that remained to be seen.

Through the plastic sheeting of the oxygen tent, Julia looked paler, weaker. Her breath came in halting gasps.

There was no improvement.

What a fool he'd been!

Even Barnabas' hope in a late miracle looked more realistic than Stokes' misguided confidence in that black magic charlatan Blair. A leap of faith, indeed! It seemed far more like a headlong dive off a tall cliff!

He'd spoken of Barnabas' arrogance... what of his own? What made him think that he'd been given the power to change the inevitable? What supreme arrogance had made him arbiter of life and death?

He noticed suddenly that her eyes were open wide and he moved forward, thinking to offer whatever comfort he could, inwardly cursing himself for having so effectively driven Barnabas away. If she needed a will to live, Barnabas was the one to give it -- not he.

"Julia," he whispered. "Can you hear me?"

Slowly, wearily, almost imperceptibly, she nodded.

"What can I do? There must be something I can..."

She shook her head and reached out to touch the plastic that separated them. "What is happening to me?"

"You've been very ill, Julia. How do you feel now?"

Her eyes, still luminous with pain, went to him and then beyond.

Barnabas stood behind him.

Stokes straightened and backed out of the way.

"I dreamed that you were here," she said to Barnabas as he came near.

"No dream. I am here," he said simply, reaching for her hand.

"I dreamed you called me back."

"Called you? From where?"

She frowned. "I don't remember." Pause. "But you've been here with me?"

He nodded. "Always, Julia."

In the antiseptic corridor, Stokes leaned against the wall.

Was she out of danger? Had the elixir worked afterall? It was still too early to tell. But she was coherent and seemed to recognize her friends -- was it hoping too much to take this as a turn for the better?

"Let's sit down."

Willie was at his elbow, trying to lead him to the lounge a few paces away. Stokes shook him off.

"No," he mumbled, wanting only privacy to consider the change. "I'm all right."

"You'd be even better if you sat for a bit. Professor, you don't look too good."

That shook Stokes from his thoughts. He allowed Willie to lead him to a chair.

"She's doin' better?"

Stokes shrugged, still uncertain in his own mind. "It could just be a last rally..."

Willie shook his head. "No. That stuff you gave her worked."

Turning, Stokes stared at the other man, looking for guile or sarcasm or accusation -- all the bitter recriminations that were running through his own mind, all directed at himself. He saw none of those in Willie's bland face -- only relief and a trace of lingering concern.

"Willie, I wish I had your faith."

They sat there in silence as the morning sun began to stream through the windows.

"I don't understand this," Dr. Xisu frowned.

"You sound unhappy."

The frown disappeared as the doctor's eyebrows arched upward. "Not unhappy, Mr. Collins. Grant me that. But I don't understand. A day ago, my patient was near near death from a mysterious fever -- now, she seems to be making a recovery. A very timely recovery, as well, if you take my meaning. I am... confused."  
Barnabas surprised the doctor -- and himself -- by laughing.

The doctor forced a slight smile in response, but the puzzlement remained in his eyes.

"When can she leave?"

"Ordinarily, I would insist upon another week of observation." Dr. Xisu sighed. "But this doesn't seem to be a very ordinary case. In as much as the patient is also a doctor, I shall consider her opinion. Whenever she feels up to it, Mr. Collins -- but she needs at least several days recuperation."

Barnabas vised the man's hand and returned to Julia's room.

"You look pretty pleased with yourself," Julia observed wryly from the bed. Color had returned to her face, and, though still drawn and tired-looking, she appeared considerably better than she had only the day before.

He impulsively kissed her hand. "There's one very confused doctor out there -- and your miraculous recovery is the source of his confusion."

Julia was concerned by Barnabas' sudden display of affection. Had she been that close to death? She brushed aside the thought and returned his smile. "If confused doctors delight you so, you ought to be very happy with me. I have to admit that I don't understand too much of this."

His face clouded. "Your condition was... very grave."

"I imagined as much," she allowed quietly. "What happened? I remember treating Adam -- and he seemed to be showing improvement. I called Elliot to see if you were recovering as well." She frowned. "I can't recall much beyond that."

"Nothing?"

"Well, some crazy dreams."

"Tell me about them."

She stared at him. "Pure fantasy, that's all," she dismissed.

"You might be surprised," was his only comment. And then, to her amazement, he took her in his arms.

Julia grimaced as the nurse drew a tube of blood from her arm. "I know, poetic justice," she said.

Dr. Xisu smiled with amusement but Barnabas and Willie, as if by mutual consent, turned their heads.

"Just one last test," Dr Xisu noted. "If these slides read clean, you should be recovered enough to be discharged in the morning." He smiled and left the room, only to immediately reenter. "I must beg your forgiveness. This was given to me yesterday, for me to pass to you. I'm terribly sorry." He gave a curt bow from the neck and departed.

Julia looked briefly at the plain envelope before opening it. She recognized the hand.

_"Julia, I looked in on you this morning to say goodbye, but you were sleeping. So -- I'm on my way without a proper farewell. Back to Maine, where I soon expect a man to come looking for me. Anyway -- dear Julia, no one is happier than I at your recovery. Well, perhaps there is one. Tell Barnabas... bother... tell him to make that leap this time. E."_

She handed the note to Barnabas. "Do you know what he's talking about?"

He scanned the sheet and looked up, but didn't respond.

Sensing a private moment at hand, Willie began to slip out of the room.

"Stay, Willie," Barnabas said. "I want you to hear this as well." He sat on the edge of the bed, gazing deeply into Julia's eyes. He produced a small box and offered it to her. 

She looked up at him, suddenly nervous. "What is it?"

"Open it."

Inside was a ring that glinted with blue fire.

With some trepidation she took it out and tried it on. "Barnabas, it's lovely. Thank you. But what's the occasion?"

He cleared his throat. "It is lovely. It becomes you. But I think... I think it might look better if -- if you would allow me..." He reached for her hand and gently removed the ring, smiling as he slipped it on her left hand. "It would be even lovelier there -- if you would allow it."

Her heart skipped a beat as the meaning of the gesture dawned on her. When she next met his eyes, her own were filmed with moisture. 

He studied her for a moment. "You haven't removed it." He paused. "May I take that as a hopeful sign?"

"Oh, Barnabas!"

He bent to embrace her. "Julia, I've been in such agony these last days, afraid I might lose you. The possibility had never occurred to me before -- that you might not be there for me. I mean to make amends. Let us share all the years that remain to us." He kissed her. "And if the day ever comes that one of us must leave the other -- then we shall have memories to sustain us until we are at last reunited."

She pulled back. "Are you certain this is what you want, Barnabas?"

He nodded slowly. "More certain than you know, dearest one." 

Hearing a noise behind him, he turned to regard Willie, who looked distinctly uncomfortable.

"I wanted a witness," Barnabas explained. "Come closer. I have something for you as well." He extracted an envelope and handed it to the other man.  
Willie took it, a tentative motion. He looked quizzical.

"Yours. We can't go back to Collinsport. Too many unpleasant possibilities. I would like to know that the house will be taken care of with the same affection I would give it. You'll see to that for me?"

Willie thrust the envelope back at Barnabas. "I can't take your house!"

"Yours now, Willie."

Willie stared at the envelope. "I can't," he whispered again.

Barnabas clasped a hand on Willie's shoulder and smiled. "Very well then. Hold it against our return. And one other thing --." He reached for something, "-- this. Give this to Professor Stokes." 

Barnabas was holding his cane. "He knows its value to me."

Willie and Julia exchanged an astonished glance.

"Are you all right, Barnabas?"

He turned back to Julia, a warm and broad smile playing across his lips. "For the first time in a long time." He kissed her gently.

**EPILOGUE**

From behind wire mesh, the snowy cat mewed its unhappiness. Nicholas Blair reached through the cage to reassure the animal.

"Here, here, my pet. This is but a temporary inconvenience, required by the master of this vessel and the veterinary laws of many countries. In a few days, we'll be..."

He snatched back his hand, the profanity dying on his lips. Blood already seeped from the deep scratches to the back of his hand.

But surprise and anger on his face gave way to an understanding amusement.

"You're still cross over my intervention with Dr. Hoffman? Ah, well. Understand my point of view. I owed the woman this. And besides, have I not saved your most worthy adversary for another round in the future? Think of that, my sweet, and channel your... passions to that day."

He laughed and straightened, pulling out a handkerchief to blot the wounds on his hand. "A few more days, then our journey's through for a few months. When I find what I seek in Prague, then we shall return to that drafty climate you so cherish -- and I shall claim what is now mine for the asking. The medallion of Astaroth is within my grasp." He knotted the handkerchief around his hand.

As he turned and left the stark cargo hold, two icy blue eyes followed him. Watching, and waiting in the darkness.


	3. Never and Again

Reality bolted back and he woke.  
Hadn’t there been a sound, something unpleasant, familiar, insistent?  
Rising, Barnabas strode across the room and threw back the drapes. The window was full only of garish light reflected up from the neon on the streets below. The glare muted the moon’s own light and completely blotted out any stars that may have attempted to compete. With an inexplicable feeling of relief, he allowed the fabric to slip through his fingers and fall back into place against the flat modern window of this flat modern hotel room.  
He returned to his bed and sat on the edge of it, knowing that the contours of the dream had already curled beyond his grasp, but unable to shake the sense of urgency, the feeling of familiarity...  
Barely three days had now elapsed since Julia’s release from the hospital. Every night there had been dreams, as overwhelming in sensation as those he’d experienced when he himself had been in the fever’s clutch, but with a wholly new element of immediacy. They confused him, more by their presence than their substance, of which he seldom retained more than a feeling of alarm. Each morning, he discounted them, attributed them to some lingering, baseless worry.  
The dreams were sourceless, he would tell himself. Just dreams.  
And yet the following night they would return.  
He massaged his temples, wishing to rub away the anxiety this dream had provoked. Failing that, and feeling no desire to return to bed, he rose, eased into his dressing gown, and went into the next room.  
“Did I wake you?” a shadow confronted him.  
Surprise jerked him back for a brief moment. “Julia.” His fingers found the lamp’s switch and the room was lit, forcing both of them to blink a bit at the sudden illumination. “How long have you been awake? Are you all right?”  
“I’m fine, Barnabas,” she said with a thin smile. “Everything is fine.” Then, as if reconsidering with some wry amusement, she amended, “That is, I think everything is fine.”  
He knelt in front of her chair, confirming for himself her assertion of wellbeing. She did look well, he conceded, even better than she had the previous day. The gauntness of that wasting fever had been nearly eradicated. Still, he didn’t like this intimation that she wasn’t getting the rest she still so badly needed.  
“You should be sleeping,” he chided gently. “Why are you sitting here alone in the dark?”  
“I’ve been thinking...”  
“Something you should save for bright daylight hours, my dear, and not dark lonely nights,” he reproved as he took a seat opposite her. Then, not wanting to seem to put her off, he added, “What is it that you have been thinking about?”  
That same bleak smile. “Us. You and I. And what happens next.”  
He ran a hand through his hair in a gesture of relief. “I see nothing in our prospects that should keep you awake. But, to set your mind at rest, we shall spend a few more days here while you regain your strength, then...” He frowned. “But we discussed this a day or two ago. Has something happened to change our plans?”  
“No,” she admitted, breaking her eyes from his. “But perhaps... perhaps we should reconsider.”  
“Reconsider?”  
“Yes. Reconsider... certain obligations.” She paused for several moments before continuing. “Barnabas,” she said abruptly, “I release you.”  
“Release me?” This repeating of her words was not making things any clearer to him. He shook his head. “I haven’t the slightest idea...” he began before stopping, one possible meaning beginning to occur to him. “Julia, surely you don’t...” He read in her eyes that she did. “Have I asked to be released?” he asked, softly.  
“You wouldn’t,” she observed with a remote admiration. “But it wouldn’t be... honest... it wouldn’t be right... to hold you to a deathbed promise.”  
“It was no ‘deathbed promise.’ Can you think that little of yourself that you would mistake my words for charity? Can you think so little of me to imagine that I would be dishonest with you in that way?”  
He paused to allow his words to register but not so long that she could protest any of them. “It pains me to confess that perhaps I would not have spoken for you had not circumstances been as they were. But I would have spoken, Julia — one day, very soon. It was only that --” he clenched his hands at the memory he conjured. “You weren’t — and I couldn’t --” Knowing his fragmented words were doing nothing to alleviate her worries, he rose and paced to the window. When he looked back at her, she was startled to see fear plain upon his face.  
“Julia,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “As soon as I learned what had happened, where you were, I raced to be near you. For I knew that it was because of me that this was happening to you. And of all the times that being my... friend... had placed you in danger, I knew instinctively that this would be the deadliest encounter.”  
“What made you believe that?” Julia asked, remembering some distinctively frightening moments. Such as the time when Aristede had fashioned an elaborate death trap for her and waited for Barnabas to trigger it...  
“Because this was the first since I realized that I loved you. Because suddenly I knew that the worst thing that could happen to me would be to lose you.” He dropped his head. “And experience tells me that the admission of love might doom it.”  
“I don’t understand...”  
“Angelique,” he hissed from a clenched jaw.  
“But she’s dead, Barnabas! And the curse is dissolved. You have nothing to fear.”  
“Dead?” His tone became bitter. “She breathed her last in my arms and yet I can’t believe it. I can’t believe that I — that we — will not encounter her malevolent spirit again.”  
“Is that why you’ve cut yourself off from Collinwood? In spite of what you told Willie before you put him on that plane, I can see that you have no intention of returning to Collinsport. Do you believe distance will protect you?”  
“Protect me? No. Not for long, at any rate, if she does still exist. But,” he said, fixing her with a somber gaze, “it may protect you, Julia. If I haven’t consigned you already by loving you.”  
She stared down to where her hands twitched nervously on the arm of the sofa. “Barnabas, I’ve worn my heart on my sleeve for years now, so I won’t deny how much I want to believe all that you promise.”  
“Believe it,” he urged softly, moving toward her again.  
She held up a restraining hand. “I need to know that you feel absolutely the same. Gratitude --” he winced as she said it, “-- or even relief at my recovery simply won’t sustain the relationship you propose. It would be intolerable to me and would ultimately embitter you.”  
Her eyes, shiny with gratitude of their own, flicked at him then away, as if afraid to linger. “Be certain, Barnabas, please be certain, because everything that has been until now and might be in the future is at stake. A false beginning will jeopardize everything.” She hesitated and swallowed. “Don’t risk it unless you’re truly certain.”  
He sat beside her and gently raised her face to his. “For the first time since I’ve known you, Madame Doctor, you err. I couldn’t practice the kindly deceit of which you are so eager to accuse me. Besides, I’m not foolish enough to believe that marriage to me would be adequate compensation for your feats of medical legerdemain — although I think that, having gone to all the trouble to save me, you bear some responsibility in determining how I should spend the rest of this life.”  
He drew her close. “Julia, I can’t easily explain my lapses, why I failed to make known to you how I’ve felt for... a longer time than you might imagine. All I know is that a few days ago I was confronted with my neglect of you in a manner that defied my comprehension. It frightened me beyond any measure of fear that I’ve ever known. The idea of losing you was terror enough — but to lose you with so many things still unsaid, things that I’d intended to tell you, things that I’d hoped you would want to hear... That was the worst, my love!”  
“You don’t know how I’ve longed to hear that you cared,” she murmured.  
“I’ve always cared, Julia. Always. But not always in the manner for which you hoped — that took time. And bringing it to words took more time, far too long, I can now see.” He kissed her hair. “Don’t worry about decisions now. There will be time enough to make them when the memory of this horror fades. Know that I love you. Concentrate on getting well again.”

“Are you certain you feel up to this?” he asked again.  
Truthfully, the frenetic cab ride through the sticky late summer’s morning had made her wish, fleetingly, that she had opted for another day of recuperation. But now, on the sidewalk, with the humidity parted by an occasional cool breeze from the waterfront, and with strident city sounds all around her, Julia rallied. “No, Barnabas. We’re here. I would like to see it.”  
Again, she almost added, but the blur of the last two weeks pushed that familiarity from her mind. She hadn’t recalled this shabby building even yesterday, but the memory was returning now that they stood before it. The address had been on the hospital admitting papers—a good thing, as she hadn’t remembered that either. Number 21 Norwich Square.  
“I need to see this,” she repeated, this time more to herself than to him. I need to remember everything that happened.  
With another uncertain look, Barnabas reached for the battered wooden door and followed her in.  
Flashes were returning. “Up, I think,” she said, pointing to the stairway that she had somehow known would be there.  
On the next level, she eyed the corridor doubtfully. This didn’t seem as strongly familiar. There were pairs of doors at regular intervals, indicating the building’s use as a kind of maritime flop house. Which door had it been? They all looked alike, with only painted numbers to distinguish them from one another. She moved slowly down the hall, waiting for another revelation, another image to strike her...  
...It wasn’t an image at all. The wooden floor creaked beneath her step and the familiar sound stopped her. She had entered this room before.  
“Is this the one?” Barnabas asked.  
She nodded. A cold sweat told her emphatically that this was the room, the room where she had found Adam, attended him as best she could, before finally succumbing to the fever herself. She wanted to enter but hesitated at the door, fighting to quell a sudden urge to turn and leave.  
Sensing her ambivalence, Barnabas twisted the doorknob and the door swung open. “At least it doesn’t appear to be in use,” he observed.  
Not in use...  
The covers on the cot were neatly arranged, with only one hole showing. A heavy wooden chair stood in the corner of the room, and the memory of how uncomfortable it had been returned with force.  
_‘Go away, Doctor.’ Adam’s lips formed the words without her ever having heard them. ‘You’ll make things worse. Don’t come in here. Don’t...’  
But there had been no threat in his words. He was too weak to threaten, and even if he hadn’t been, she knew that there still would have been only resignation in his demand. He had given up hope.  
Adam’s face was wet with the residue of his fever and his eyes were half-lidded with weariness. ‘No,’ he wheezed again, his voice racked with urgency. ‘Not even for him. Let us both die — save your...’  
She had interrupted him with officious motions that consoled herself more than the sick man. This moment was the culmination of all those helpless hours on the jet, spent going over the details of Barnabas’ condition, trying to formulate a diagnosis and frame a method of treatment. Agonizing whether she’d brought the right drugs, or enough of the drugs, to effect a change. Worrying that an over-zealous Customs agent might confiscate her precious cache in search of contraband..._  
“Julia.” Barnabas looked concerned. “I don’t like the effect this place is having upon you.”  
“I’m all right,” she insisted, placing her hand on his sleeve to reassure him. “Things are beginning to come back to me. I found Adam here. He kept trying to warn me away — I attributed it to delirium at the time, but in view of what nearly happened...” She shook her head slightly. Pointless to pursue that line of conjecture.  
“What else?” Barnabas prompted.  
“Rain.” She stepped to the tiny window, barely covered by a tattered shade. “Torrents of it, and the room growing hotter, and smaller, and Adam shrinking in the midst of it all.” She looked back to the bed. “The drugs I’d brought didn’t have any effect on the fever. I increased them to nearly toxic dosage and still there was no improvement.”  
“But you found a way.”  
“I was just on the verge of giving up, of calling in the local experts. I had wasted precious days and achieved nothing, and I knew that Adam’s lack of progress mirrored yours. In fact, I went out, intending to find a telephone, when I came across...”  
_Han Li Apothecary.  
She looked up in surprise. Was this some final irony, that she should chose a pharmacy to seek a public phone? She entered, and an elderly Chinese moved to the counter.  
‘I may help you.’  
She wasn’t so ill-composed as to miss the syntax error that made the older man’s greeting a statement instead of a query. But neither could she stop for the luxury of amusement over the trifle.  
‘Is there a telephone, a public phone that I could use? I have a friend who is terribly ill, and I must get him to the hospital.’  
With a careless gesture, the man indicated a telephone hanging from the opposite wall of the shop. She nodded her thanks and turned toward it, when she heard him say again —  
\-- ‘I may help.  
‘I don’t understand,’ she offered to the man, not wanting to offend but needing to make the call that would summon help.  
‘Together, we can help your friend,’ the old man said calmly. ‘He has the Shao-t’ai, the dragon’s fire, does he not?’ When she failed to respond, he touched his forehead. ‘The fever that scalds the body?’  
A chill raced through her. ‘How did you know that?’  
‘I know,’ he nodded without expression. ‘I know. We can help your friend.’ He reached behind the counter for a bottle, counted out a dozen white tablets and placed them in a small bottle. ‘Plagredine. You know it?’  
Reflexively, she nodded. She recognized it as a drug similar to those she had brought with her. ‘But I’ve already tried it — or something like it. It isn’t working.’  
‘Ah.’ He nodded again, unmindful of her protest, and waddled to another container. Shaking out an equal number of pearl-colored pills, he filled and placed a stopper on a second bottle. ‘It will help your friend. Use together.’ He pointed in turn to the tablets of the known drug, then to the strange pills.  
A voice in the back of her mind kept reminding her of her original mission. She must make the call. She couldn’t allow herself to be delayed by this old man, however well-intentioned he might seem.  
But she took a step closer. The Plagredine was too close to what she herself had deduced was needed to make the old man’s choice a mere guess. ‘What is that?’ she indicated the second bottle.  
He smiled benignly. ‘It will soothe the dragon.’  
Soothe the dragon?_

“What made you change your mind?” Barnabas repeated.  
“I’m not sure.” She shrugged. “It’s ludicrous, I know. I think I would have never even tried it had I not been so desperate and so certain that the hospital staff could do no better.”  
Barnabas shifted his collar in the heat. “It did work, Julia,” he reminded her. “It saved Adam — and me.”  
“Yes, it worked,” she admitted with a sigh. “But it shouldn’t have, because I shouldn’t have been fool enough to experiment at a time like that. Still... Adam began to respond only hours after the first dose. The fever broke and he came to himself again. He kept warning me...”  
“Warning?”  
“Absurd things, probably half-remembered nightmares. He wasn’t making much sense, and I wasn’t listening. That must have been when I started getting sick, although I didn’t recognize it at the time. I just remember that the rain was pounding and the heat of this room was stifling. I went back to the apothecary — the old man wasn’t there — and I used the phone to call Elliot to see how you were responding. I don’t recall the conversation — I don’t even remember how I got back here.” The gaps in her memory still frustrated and distressed her.  
_Adam was dressing now.  
She should protest, she knew, his being up so soon, but she was so tired. And so hot. This room was a veritable furnace, the heat seeming to radiate out from the walls and the floor. Rain still splattered in thick drops at the window.  
Adam finished buttoning his shirt. He stared at her for a long while before finally coming to the chair where she sat. He knelt in front of her.   
“I’ve got to leave now.”  
“No... You still need—“  
He shook his head. “No. I’m better, and I’ve got to go. There’s a man looking for me — I can’t let him find me.” He frowned. “But what about you?”  
“Me?” she repeated. She didn’t understand his meaning.  
“Does anyone know where you are?”  
“Elliot... Elliot knows. I called him, just a little while ago.”  
“That was yesterday, Julia. You left to make a phone call yesterday. Don’t you remember?”  
It seemed awfully hard to remember.  
When she didn’t respond, Adam pressed on. “You called Professor Stokes. That’s good. I hope he’s on his way. He’ll help.”  
“Help?”  
“You’re infected. The fever.”  
“The man in the apothecary — he gave me...” She reached toward the dresser.  
He folded her fingers back into her palm and patted her hand. “It’s gone. You used all the medicine on me. I’ll call the Professor, make sure he’s coming. He’ll know what to do.”  
He straightened. “Julia, you have to be careful,” he said meaningfully.   
“What?” she asked, confused by his words and his anxiousness to leave._

“We’re leaving,” Barnabas announced, liking neither the memories unearthed nor the effect they were having upon her. “I’ll not have you suffer a relapse while trying to remember how it all started.” He took her elbow and guided her from the room.  
Outside, they strolled in the direction of the breeze, walking in silence along the perimeter of the harbor. Crowded junks bumped each other in the water, some nudging their way past on missions of transport or commerce. Easily visible beyond the fray were hulking cargo ships, tethered in the bay by massive chains, their rust an affront to the fresh color of the sails of the tiny junks.  
Barnabas watched Julia carefully as she took in the view. “You’re feeling better now?”   
She nodded. “Thank you, Barnabas.” Then, closing her eyes and turning away, she breathed, “When can we go?”  
Knowing she referred to more than simply the discordant Hong Kong harbor, he felt his own relief. “Whenever you wish, my dear. Choose your destination, and we will fly to it this very night.”  
“No, not a plane.” She looked up at him and smiled wanly. “I think a slow boat from China would be more relaxing. Plus, it would give us more time to think about the future.”  
“As you wish,” he inclined his head. “Shall we speak to a booking agent?”  
“This afternoon. But let’s find the Stanley Market first. I have some shopping to do.”  
“Oh?”  
She laughed, a welcome sound for its long absence. “If we’re going to take a cruise, I’ll need something to wear, Barnabas. The two outfits I threw in a bag weeks ago are exhausted. And besides,” she smiled purposefully, “I’ll need a trousseau, won’t I?”

"There’s one more thing,” she said, spying a shop.  
“Julia, please!” he remonstrated. “Surely we can buy whatever else you need in Singapore. I think we’ve pressed the delivery abilities of the Chinese merchants to the limit.”  
“This isn’t for me, Barnabas.” She pointed to the storefront. A bookseller’s shop. “I thought I’d look for something for Elliot. I never got to say goodbye to him, to thank him for all that he did.”  
Relenting, Barnabas allowed, “Stokes was invaluable during the last month. Still, I suspect he’d prefer a letter from you over a book. He... well, this is difficult to describe, but I believe... I nearly had a rival for you in him.”  
She considered his words. “I had begun to notice a subtle change in the way he behaved around me. Unfortunately, I never had time to talk to him about it — how sweet and touching but ultimately how pointless it was. You see, Barnabas,” she smiled sadly, “there couldn’t have been a rival for you.”  
He squeezed her hand, conscious of a certain irony in their discussion of Elliot Stokes. Trying to put it from his thoughts, he followed her into the shop. It was the kind of dank, musty bookshop that Professor Stokes would have appreciated. Ancient wooden shelves sagged, and books were jammed in spaces where walls should have been visible. It was, indeed, a book-lover’s paradise. Barnabas wondered briefly what language the books might be in; inspection of a few of the spines revealed nothing more exotic than English.  
There seemed to be no order to the manner in which the books were arranged. Old books swathed new. Subjects intermingled —Lepidopterist’s Handbook alongside Nelson at Trafalgar. Neither were they arranged alphabetically or by author. They stretched on in irregular rows, from floor to bare ceiling, where they were parted occasionally by exposed pipes. Barnabas backed away a few paces, trying to see how far up the wall one particularly jumbled set of shelves scaled, and he collided with someone.  
“I beg your pardon!” he began, turning.  
But the other man was already retreating down the aisle, without ever having acknowledged the collision. He disappeared behind a corner. Barnabas stared after him in confusion, before finally shaking his head. Curious reaction to an accidental jostle.  
He saw Julia settling with the woman bookseller and dodged free-standing piles of books to join her. “You found something that will intrigue Stokes?”  
“Perhaps.” She looked at the thin volume’s faded cloth cover. “It seems so insignificant, though.”  
“I’m sure he’ll be pleased with your choice — and with the thought that intended it.”   
“I hope so.” She dropped the purchase into her bag. “Shall we go?”  
As they left, a dark man approached the bookseller, who had resumed stacking books on a countertop.  
“Who...?” he began.  
She turned with a knowing look. “I thought you might be interested.”  
“For my collection... I must know... I must have...” he breathed, barely able to contain his anticipation. “You can tell me?”  
She nodded.  
“The same?” he asked, pulling a thick fold of bills from his pocket.  
“This is special. An... unusual... acquisition, is it not?”  
He understood and added a generous bonus to the amount he had peeled off. “Is that sufficient?”  
She scooped up the money and secreted it into the folds of her gown. “It will do.” She scribbled quickly on a slip of paper and passed it to him. Giving a hurried bow in appreciation, he raced out.  
Looking after him, she murmured, “Another prize for your collection, monsieur.”

Taking the book from her hands and laying it aside, Barnabas eased beside her on the sofa. “Shouldn’t you rest, Julia? We’ve had a busy day.”  
She smiled contentedly. “I’m really feeling quite myself again, Barnabas. Don’t be so worried.”  
“An impossible request. I shall be worrying over you for a long time to come.” He pulled her closer. “Getting on that ship tomorrow will alleviate some of my concern.”  
“At least I can agree with that,” she admitted. “Hong Kong is beautiful, but I’m afraid that... events... have marred the experience for me. But Singapore should be nice — similar in many ways, but with a Malaysian influence.”  
“You’ve been there before?”  
“Never. I’ve just read books about it.”  
“Then we can see it together.” The thought pleased him. It seemed very important to share a new journey with her, one that would mark a new beginning. Then, as the realization of her weakened condition returned, he added, apologetically, “I hope the voyage isn’t too rough.”  
She restrained a laugh at his persistent naivete of modern conveniences. “Sea travel has improved somewhat since your last voyage, Barnabas. Unless we encounter a storm, we should hardly notice the ship’s motion.”  
Remembering his own lack of sealegs with appalling clarity, he was willing to be pleasantly surprised on that score.  
She dropped her head onto his shoulder, and an interval of quiet passed. Though reluctant to break the easy silence between them, he longed to tell her how much the day had meant, how relieved he was to have had her restored to him, and without the awkward self-conscious moments he’d imagined. This was so simple, so obviously what he had been missing. How could he have overlooked this before?  
In acknowledgement of past blindness, he kissed her forehead tenderly.  
She raised her face and looked into his eyes, and he brought his lips to hers in another gentle kiss. When he drew back, he saw his wonder reflected back at him.  
“Forgive me for the time I’ve wasted, dear Julia,” he murmured. “Allow me to prove that I won’t squander another chance.”  
It took a moment for her to find her voice. “I lost claim to my own life when I met you, Barnabas. I have nothing to give that isn’t yours already.” She paused. “I spent so long trying to resist you. It feels strange not to try anymore. Look.” She put her hands up and he saw that they were trembling.  
He covered her hands with his own. “Then don’t resist.”  
A little shamed at the transparency of his desires, he nonetheless pulled her closer and kissed her deeply and with pent-up passion. Her response matched and merged with his ardor, and the only thought that kept running through his mind was how right it was.

Sometime just before dawn, the eddies of dreams began to still and fade and reality segued back. He stirred, feeling the unfamiliar stiffness of one shoulder and then remembering, with a mixture of chagrin and satisfaction, the reason for it. Julia had lain against that shoulder in respite of the passion they had shared. He heard the regular refrain of her breathing and knew, without even opening his eyes, that she slept on, immune to the hour that called him.  
Even since his release from vampirism, the threshold between day and night beckoned him relentlessly. It was as if, having once acknowledged the importance of the division, he was forever chained to the knowledge. He doubted that a night would ever end, a dawn ever begin, without his awareness.  
Pushing into the comfort of his pillow, he thought back to the last few hours. When Julia had fallen long silent, he had been careful not to break that quiet, sensing that even though she’d made her decision regarding their future together, she still had some deep-held concern to subdue.  
Perhaps she worried over some residual taint of the vampirism; perhaps something baser. In retrospect, he couldn’t excuse much of his own behavior towards her during the first year or so of their acquaintance. Could he trust that she understood — that she forgave? -- that she was willing to risk her future?  
What kind of a future did he offer? Would he ever have enough time to make up past neglect? How long before he could look into her eyes and not see some faint reflection of remembered cruelty? He’d caught a glimpse of it tonight: not accusatory, not bitter, just a sad wistful silence. Recognizing it -- and realizing its source -- had cut him to the quick.  
In the coils of her own dreams, Julia sighed suddenly, and he cracked his eyes. It still took many seconds before his vision focused.  
In fact, it almost seemed as if his sight was obscured. Something thin and spidery lay across his face. He brushed a sleep-clumsy hand at it.  
It felt like hair — like the long tresses with which women of his day coiffed themselves...  
...But Julia had short hair...  
He sat up in puzzlement. Wide eyes glittered back at him.  
“I never freed you, Barnabas.”  
That voice!  
“I said I’d take you to my grave and so I will -- and beyond...”  
“Angelique!” The recognition was wrenched from him without thought to the impossibility of her being here... in this room... at this time...  
He could just make out her malignant smile from the face that, though still shrouded in darkness, should have been Julia’s.  
“I would have hoped for more reverence from you, Barnabas, if for no other reason than the fact that I released you from the curse. Were your words of love for me mere bribery?”  
Words caught in his throat. Though he still recoiled at the thought of Angelique’s resurrection, in whatever form, another part of him wanted to protest her dismissal. Charity, and pity, had dictated his words as she breathed her last in his arms in 1841. How could he have confessed love to her, to the woman who’d destroyed his family, destroyed his life, returned time and again to plague both him and the Collins family?  
But one word only came from his lips.  
“Julia?”  
The laugh, at once familiar and chilling. “She isn’t harmed by my visitation, merely... momentarily displaced. I shall return your precious Julia to you... for now.” Angelique paused to let the veiled threat sink in. “But I warn you, Barnabas, that you are my husband still. I have not released you of your obligation to me, nor will I tolerate you trying to replace me with another.”  
“Your power over me is ended,” he shouted in frustration and rage and growing fear. “Return to the peace of death, Angelique, and leave me what little happiness I may yet salvage.”  
Another laugh. “Return? -- yes, I shall return, Barnabas. But even you may be surprised at when, and how.”  
He reached for the woman alongside him and shook her shoulders. “Leave me! Leave now!”  
“Barnabas?” At first a whisper of surprise, the voice grew in intensity to match his. “Barnabas! Stop! Stop, you’re hurting...”  
He stopped shaking the frail shadowed form before him without relinquishing his harsh grip. “Julia?”   
“What’s wrong, Barnabas?”  
Silently he thanked whatever gods remained to one like him and embraced her. “A dream, a horrible dream. But it’s over now.”

When the steward looked confused, the dark man pressed a wad of pink bills into his hand. “Perhaps you will remember now...?”  
The money disappeared quickly. “Yes, yes,” the steward nodded. “Collins. Lower Promenade Deck.” He paused to consult the clipboard behind the purser’s desk. “Cabins 165 and 167.”  
“Merci,” the man replied absently, lapsing into a more familiar tongue. He turned and proceeded to his own cabin on the main deck, past the brass plate that noted the 1957 launching date of S.S. Rotterdam.

“It’s magnificent,” Julia whispered, almost out of superlatives now that they’d seen the ship’s sleek racing lines and luxuriously appointed common areas. She turned in the spacious cabin, and noted that their bags had already been delivered. “Barnabas, this is wonderful.”  
“It is a wonder,” he agreed, marveling at the brightness and roominess of the accommodation. Sea travel had indeed changed in the intervening century and a half.  
Julia found the bottle of champagne, chilling in a bucket of ice. “How nice! -- But who...?” She frowned, trying to think who could have anticipated their departure. There was a card half concealed by the sweating bucket, and though the ink had smeared she could make out the note.  
“Willie!” she exclaimed. “How did he...?”  
Barnabas half-chuckled. “I had to call him to wire funds. Evidently, he figured out the details I neglected to mention.”  
Sighing, Julia slipped off her shoes and sank into an overstuffed chair. “I think I’m going to like this.”  
He went to her and leaned down to kiss her. “Nothing would please me more.”  
She crossed her arms and pushed back in the chair, eyeing him with a slight, knowing smile. “How could you have been so certain that we would need only the one cabin?” “I wasn’t.” He pulled another key from his jacket pocket and eyed it ruefully before offering it to her. “If you wish...”  
She folded his fingers around it and pushed it away. “I don’t think it will be necessary.”  
Relieved, he slipped it back into the pocket. He covered the distance to the porthole and looked through the bubble of glass at the ever-crowded harbor.  
She came up beside him. “Why don’t we go back on deck? The view will be better.”  
His arms twined around her. “But then I would have to share you, and that I am not willing to do. Not just yet, anyway.” He pressed against her, delighting again in the odd combination of familiarity and newness that were one whenever he touched her.

Without meaning to, her eyes found him again, the persistent shadow that had seemed to haunt them since their embarkation that morning. A dark man, obviously of African extraction. He had passed them several times during the course of the day, seeming to linger in the dining salon at a table across the room from their own, reappearing as they enjoyed coffee in the Ambassador Lounge, ever a few minutes behind their arrival on a new deck.  
“I know this sounds ridiculous, but I think that man is following us,” Julia whispered as discretely as she could manage. They were standing along the starboard rail of the main deck, looking out to sea as the ship, steaming for two hours now, knifed through dark waters.  
Barnabas looked to see whom she meant. About a hundred feet aft, a thin, dark man reclined in a deck chair with a book in front of him.  
He shrugged in amusement. “He seems to be more interested in his book than in us.”  
“I’ve been seeing him all day, Barnabas. He always seems to be in the same place we are.”  
“Even in such a marvel as this large ship, the paths of its passengers will intersect occasionally.”  
“You mean that it’s just coincidence?” She cast another surreptitious look at the man, who appeared to be reading intently. “It seems odd to me.”  
“Then why don’t we elude him by having a short nightcap?”  
Going down one deck, they took a table in the Ocean Bar, which was emptying out now that the live entertainment had begun in another part of the ship. An attentive steward brought them drinks, and they sat gazing through large oval windows at much the same sight as they had enjoyed a few minutes earlier, but without the fresh, sweet smell of sea air.  
“Infinitely preferable to airplanes,” Barnabas observed.  
“Amen,” Julia seconded, then, realizing that the meaning of her colloquialism might not be clear to a man of the eighteenth century, she hastened to add, “It is more pleasurable. Of course, it is also more time-consuming. In the few hours we’ve been underway, we could have already been in Singapore, had we but flown.”  
“This seems to be an era in which time is saved without purpose.”  
She was intrigued. “Go on.”  
He spread his hands, warming to a subject that he’d long observed without understanding. “What I mean is that people of this century seem to overlook the pleasures of the journey. Destination seems to be always at the forefront, with little or no thought given to the adventure of the trip.”  
“You’re right, of course. I’ve never looked at it that way before.”  
He made a gesture of self-effacement. “I’m not sure my views have any practicality in this age.” Then, sighing, he reached for his glass. “There are days when I feel that I may never adjust to this new world. Too many important things seem to be overlooked.”  
She was reaching for his hand to comfort him when she froze. “Barnabas, you’re not going to believe this. Look.”   
He shifted his eyes and saw the dark man taking a seat at the bar. Mildly surprised, he looked back to her. “This does begin to beg an explanation other than sheer coincidence.”  
“Do you know him?”  
“I’m sure I would remember such a man if ever I’d met him,” he replied. “As you well know, until now my sphere of travel has been somewhat limited.” Barnabas considered. “Let’s ask him to join us.”  
“You’re not serious,” she said incredulously.  
“It is one way to ascertain his purpose -- if there is any.”  
“It might do that,” she admitted grudgingly. Then she rolled her eyes in acquiescence. “Oh, I’m probably reading too many thriller novels of late.”  
Barnabas caught the steward on his next pass and asked him to relay a message to the man seated at the bar. He turned back to her.  
“Now we shall see how bold our shadow is.”  
They didn’t have long to wait. The stranger materialized at their table.  
“Good evening,” he said, uncertainly, through an accent that hinted of many homes. “The garçon said you wished... to buy my drink.”  
Barnabas laughed. “The translation is wanting, I think. I asked if you would join us for a drink.”  
“With pleasure, if I do not intrude.” The man tried to make his face into an expression of confused gratitude, but his eyes belied the attempt. With an inner groan, Julia thought that he looked quite pleased with himself, and she didn’t know what meant.  
He settled himself into the vacant chair and looked up expectantly. “May I have the honor of knowing whose generosity I enjoy?”  
“Dr. Julia Hoffman,” Barnabas said, indicating Julia. She mumbled some pleasantry. “I am Barnabas Collins.”  
“Americain, non?”  
“Oui.”  
The man smiled tentatively, as if just realizing that something unintended had slipped. “Antoine Jamais. Je suis ravi de vous connaitre.”  
Barnabas held up a warning hand. “Pourriez-vous parler plus lentement? Slowly, please. It’s been a long time.”  
“Mais vous parlez...”  
“Tres peu. Very little. Your English seems better, so we’d better stay with that.”  
“C’est bon,” Jamais agreed. “You are on holiday?”  
“That’s right,” Julia interspersed quickly, hoping to guide the conversation away from them and back to their guest, whose behavior she found so peculiar. “And you -- are you on business or pleasure?”  
“Both, in a manner of speaking,” he said, smiling a slow half-smile. “My business is my pleasure, Doctor. I... collect.”  
“Collect? As in art?”  
“Not as you mean it. Not paintings or sculpture.”  
“Then what?”  
“Stories, Doctor.”  
She recalled the book they had seen him engrossed in earlier and suddenly made the connection. Still, it was rather a curious way for him to say that he collected books. Perhaps his command of English wasn’t as good as the brief introduction had indicated.  
The steward returned with drinks, interrupting her train of thought.  
Barnabas sipped his brandy. “Your native country is France?”  
“Ah, non. Tangier.” Then as if uncertain of the geographical savvy of his hosts, he added, “Morocco.” He paused. “Have you been there?”  
“No. Please tell us about it.”  
And Jamais obliged with a colorful and witty description of his avowed homeland, oddly bereft, if his listeners had but noted the fact, of any personal intrusion. His anecdotes were not his own experiences, but stories: lively, vivid renderings of events witnessed. Still, his engaging manner and entertaining conversation soon had Julia wondering why she had mistaken him for something sinister.  
“I bought a book yesterday in Hong Kong,” she said during a lull following his humorous recitation. Jamais seemed to tense. “It’s for a friend -- and, well, perhaps you could appraise it for me...”  
“I would be delighted,” Jamais replied, visibly relaxing. “If you could bring it to me now, I could return it to you by the morning.”  
“That would be very kind of you.” Excusing herself, she hurried off to retrieve the intended gift for Professor Stokes.  
“The doctor is a lovely companion,” Jamais remarked. “She is a special friend of yours?”  
“Quite special,” Barnabas acknowledged. He drained off the last of his brandy and looked around at the empty bar. “It’s getting late. I’m afraid we’ve imposed upon you...”  
“Nonsense!” Jamais smiled robustly. “And you must allow me to return your favor. Puis-je vous offrir un verre? Another drink?” His hand flung out in an expansive gesture and in so doing brushed Barnabas’.  
A current seemed to pass between them, freezing Barnabas in place. An unsettled feeling washed over him, making him wince and shut his eyes.  
“J’ecoute, monsieur,” a distant voice whispered. “Now, I listen.”  
Memories flooded out, unbidden, and Barnabas was reacting to each as if it was fresh—pain, fear, the anguish of loss and near loss, anger, hatred, all bursting free of the confines of his subconscious and tormenting him anew.  
A duel and a love lost forever. Angelique’s vile seduction. The evil of Petofi and Judah Zachary. His own evil. Those helpless victims of fate—Adam, Jenny, Chris, Roxanne, and a score of faceless, nameless women. The ones who had carried the seeds of their own destruction—Quentin, Eve, Trask, Forbes, and Gerard Stiles. His families, one irretrievably lost and another renewed. Finally, the faces of those who had redeemed him. A new love, forged in currents of adversity.  
After an interminable few moments, when the tide of memories began to ebb, there was another soft whisper.  
“You listen now, Barnabas Collins. Your is... un recit fantastique! An important addition to my collection!” The man regarded Barnabas with some sympathy. “It has been a terrible burden, has it not? And yet, your darkest hours are before you still.”  
Jamais considered, still not breaking the contact that held Barnabas prisoner. “For such a feast as you have given me, I shall make an exchange. I cannot stop the fate that draws you nearer, but I can give you my name, which may, in your time of need, be of some small service.” He brought his other hand up to briefly touch Barnabas’ brow. “We shall meet again, Monsieur Collins.”  
“Barnabas!”  
His eyes flicked open at Julia’s voice.  
She brandished the book and a disappointed glance. “Where is he?”  
Surprised to find himself alone at the table, Barnabas looked around the deserted bar. A bartender, valiantly polishing glassware, was the only other person in sight.  
“Did you chase him off?” Julia asked, a little self-chastened at how much she had anticipated having Jamais examine her gift for Elliot Stokes. Then, sensing Barnabas’ own bewilderment, “Did something happen while I was gone?”  
“Something must have,” he said, looking at the fresh drink before him. That hadn’t been there a few moments ago. But what? -- and why couldn’t he remember?...  
Abruptly, he pushed away from the table and stood. “Come, my dear. Nothing is to be served by staying here any longer.”

Later, while he listened to Julia’s even breathing, Barnabas’ thoughts kept returning to Antoine Jamais. Peculiar man. Julia had been so concerned at his mysterious appearance, but Barnabas felt, intuitively, that the man’s departure was the real mystery. What had happened? And why did he have the strange feeling that he’d overlooked something very important about M. Jamais? -- that some telling clue of the man’s purpose had been apparent but he, Barnabas, hadn’t been able to isolate and identify it?  
Jamais had left him puzzled and worried, far too much to have confessed to Julia, as he still wished to shield her from concern. Barnabas was chagrined to realize that, in this case, his new protectiveness deprived him of his best confidante. He reminded himself that the harboring of private worries was but a temporary condition, that when he could be certain she was fully recovered he would fully divulge his confusion over this episode. Perhaps, by then, they would find some humor in it. Just now, though, it seemed a strangely flat joke, lacking a clever twist.  
Julia sighed in her sleep, and Barnabas forced Jamais from his thoughts. He cradled her closer and finally drifted into sleep himself.

The cabin door opened and Julia looked up.  
“Any luck?”  
He shook his head. “Our mysterious acquaintance has simply vanished.”  
“From a ship underway? That’s impossible.”  
“Perhaps,” he allowed. “However, the purser has no passenger on his manifest by that name.”  
“The steward in the bar must remember...”  
“He might, if I could find him. But without the steward’s name I have no place to start.”  
She turned back to the letter she’d been composing, added a single word, and laid down her pen. “Well, Monsieur Jamais has certainly piqued my curiosity.”  
“And mine as well,” Barnabas admitted. He watched as Julia folded the soft-blue sheet of ship’s stationery and slipped it into an envelope. “Stokes?”  
“Do I detect a note of jealousy?”  
He swept her into his arms. “Why should I begrudge the man a letter when I have possession of the real article?”  
Laughing, she twisted free. “Point well taken. But I wasn’t writing to Elliot. I felt that we owed Elizabeth some explanation.”  
“What did you tell her?”  
“That it seemed time for a change,” she answered with characteristic succinctness. “That my illness had forced me to the realization that I needed some time away -- and that you had gallantly offered to join me.”  
“Very discrete,” he said admiringly.  
“It won’t hold up for long,” she shrugged. “Elizabeth is far more perceptive than this letter credits her. But it will, at least, give us some time to frame the truth.”  
“The truth? -- that we are going to marry?”  
“Actually, I’m not sure that would be much of a surprise. I think she’s always known how I’ve felt. What I think would surprise her – would make her very unhappy -- is that you have no plans to return to Collinwood.”  
Guiltily, he broke his gaze. “That can’t be helped.” Then, trying to dispel the somber mood, he said, “Let’s take a walk around the deck. Perhaps we will spot M. Jamais in a deckchair again.”

As Hong Kong had seemed to throb with a frenetic pace, so Singapore, when they arrived a few days later, seemed orderly and mannered. Lacking the crowds and drama of the free port, Singapore nonetheless had the color of the orient, but in a reserved, austere way. Barnabas found himself liking it right away.  
A bowl of flowers spiced the room where they waited, adding a touch of exotica to the otherwise purely officious nature of the consulate. The petite young woman who had received them returned with a shy smile.  
“Mr. Collins, Dr. Hoffman,” she nodded in recognition of their patience. “The vice consul is engaged now and will be unavailable for several hours. However, if you would care to leave your papers with us, he can review them over luncheon and would be prepared to discuss your case later this afternoon.”  
Julia looked to Barnabas for some indication. After all, he had the most to lose by close scrutiny of his passport -- he who still traveled on the forged documents gotten by Willie Loomis in a moment of desperation many weeks earlier.  
But Barnabas looked sanguine. “Fine.”  
The receptionist referred to her desk calendar. “Shall we say three o’clock, then?” she asked, already penciling in their names.  
He nodded and rose. “Thank you.”  
“Please.” She handed him several sheets of legal-sized paper. “It would expedite matters if you could complete these and bring them when you return. And,” she gathered two other sheets, “this is some information you may find helpful, as well. National ordinances, mainly.” She added a final sheet. “Oh, and this lists the local magistrates.”  
They thanked her again and exited.  
The sidewalk was even and immaculate and mercifully free of inhabitants despite the noon hour. Julia turned to Barnabas, frowning. “Was that wise, Barnabas? He might detect...”  
“It is a risk I shall have to take eventually. And, besides, the document has withstood the scrutiny before, as I entered and left each country. Why should anything betray me now?”  
She admired his optimism, but didn’t share it. The mere fact that overworked clerks in airports and shipping offices had not discovered his passport was less than genuine could not comfort away the fact that an expert in such matters now held the bogus document. What would happen when its authenticity was justly questioned?  
What had ever possessed her to agree to such a ridiculous gamble?  
He stopped and took her hands. “Don’t worry. The matter will work itself out.” The issue disposed of to his satisfaction, Barnabas indicated the cafe ahead and they slipped into the shade of its door.  
Over strong Malaysian tea, they read through the questionnaires provided by the consulate. Barnabas frowned at the information requested.  
“It has been hard enough to invent a suitable past for myself,” he mumbled in dismay. “How am I to invent a future?”  
“Imagination?” She offered a sympathetic smile, reaching for both questionnaires. Better that she should complete them anyway. While Barnabas was sufficiently adapted to twentieth century speech and manners that an infrequent lapse would be attributed to an eccentric courtliness, his written communications marked him as an anachronism. Not just for the occasional florid choice of words, but for his inexact method of spelling them. There was no escaping the fact that Barnabas Collins predated Mr. Webster’s dictionary.  
“There.” She slid the papers back for his review.  
“You’ve indicated a stay of only two months.”  
“We have to go home sometime, Barnabas.”  
He twisted the thick cloth napkin in his hands and tossed it on the table, motioning to the waiter for their check. Then, catching the surprise on her face at his outburst, he suggested the only concession he could permit. “Some place else, then.”  
She looked at him askance. “I thought perhaps that time...”  
“There isn’t enough time for us to chance, Julia.”  
“But your family...”  
“Hurting them grieves me, but there is no alternative.”  
“My position at Wyndcliffe -- I can’t simply abandon it...”  
He gave an impatient shrug that relayed clearly his expectation that she would do just that.  
“Barnabas! Be realistic. We can’t cut ourselves off from our obligations over imagined fears.”  
“Imagined?” A haunted expression settled over his features. “Julia, my worries are rooted in fact, nourished by experience. I can’t risk exposing you to the evil that surrounded me at Collinwood.”  
“Then,” she said softly, “I’m glad we discussed this now.” Her meaning was clear. In another few hours, assuming their papers passed the inspection of the consulate and they received the visa they requested, they would find a magistrate who would marry them.  
“Wyndcliffe means so much to you?”  
“It isn’t about Wyndcliffe, Barnabas. I won’t chain you to the fear you speak of. I won’t be the reason -- or excuse -- for your absence from a family that adores you. I don’t want to banish myself from people whose esteem I treasure -- people like Elliot Stokes and Willie Loomis, friends who made sacrifices on my behalf.” Dropping her voice, she said slowly, “Let the past die, Barnabas, or there can’t be any future at all.”  
“You leave little choice,” he said at length. “Understand my caution.”  
She smiled sadly. “I do. And I can’t help but cherish the hope that you will change your mind eventually and want to go home.”  
He allowed her words to stand unchallenged, even though he knew far better.

Rain slashed at the upturned faces, the honest grief frozen and unmindful of the assault. They gave no reaction to the storm, sought no shelter, only silently accepted the due of the night. Their blind staring eyes did not attend the sight of a man passing among them.  
He heard the thunder they did not. He felt the rapier of wind to which they remained patently oblivious. Turning up the collar of his coat, Nicholas Blair pressed on through the cemetery’s lifeless colony, at once admiring the form and disdaining the function of those around him.  
Unmoved by pity for the mute sentinels of loss, he studied face after face, some angelic with repose—some twisted in despair. None were corrupted by time; all were smooth with youth and purity of purpose. Still, they could serve him.  
He stopped before one figure and brushed the form with his gloved hands. There was no flinch of surprise or recognition at his touch. He stared for a long moment, weighing the choice, then discarded the selection and moved to another.   
This one would be better suited.  
Yes.  
From a fold in his heavy coat, he withdrew an object; holding it, he reached his other hand to stroke the stone plumage of the raven perched on a grave marker.  
“Now you will fly,” he promised.  
The rain’s tempo quickened, spraying the unblinking eyes in the cemetery and forcing Blair to adjust the brim of his fedora against it. But even rain did not dampen the sound of feathers suddenly rustled and righted.

_...of course, however, lacking the evidence of the Kashir Stone and the Medallion of Astaroth, one is forced to dismiss the entire tale as apocryphal, begun, no doubt, to inspire the down-trodden inhabitants. Judah Loew ben Bezalel’s fanciful creation remained an oral legend among his people for over three centuries, until the publication of Sefer Niflaot Maharal, or Book of the Miracles, in 1909. At this time..._

A sharp crack of thunder broke Stokes’ concentration and he glanced up in irritation. Damned storm, brewing all afternoon, and now choosing the worst moment to interrupt him. He looked back to the yellow legal tablet and his own halting script. What was to come next? Had he mentioned the reference found in the Kabbalah? He paged back through the filled sheets lying face down at his elbow. Damn. He had. What, then, came next?  
The lights in his study wavered, affording a brief warning to the storm’s next boom. He threw down his pen in disgust. Elliot Stokes could write by candlelight, could write even in the ink of total darkness. But he could not write with these percussive interruptions to his train of thought.  
He sighed. Even storms pass, he reminded himself. Perhaps he would be able to resume work on the monograph later in the evening. And perhaps the break would do him some good -- freshen his wits and give him a new approach for the conclusion.  
The brandy bottle was a few enticing steps away, but Stokes reached deliberately for the coffee service instead. No point in dulling his mind during the enforced respite.  
But the coffee was tepid and bitter. Deciding to fully attend to creature comforts, he rose and went to the fireplace, stirring the embers to glowing life before he added logs. Then, he went to retrieve the coffee service—a ridiculously ostentatious bit of frippery, really, but one of the few things of value in his share of the Stokes family spoils—and head to the kitchen. Passing the front hall, he looked up in time to catch a strobe of lightning as it flashed through a window. The light seemed to hang for an interminable time -- in reality, a few seconds -- and was caught and reflected by another object. The effect startled him until he realized its source. Obviously, the lightning had reflected off the silver handled cane that stood with brethren umbrellas near a coat stand.  
He shook his head and continued on his way. That cane. Strange memento of that business over the summer. He’d never been sure he understood Barnabas’ motive in having sent it; certainly, it held no particular meaning for him. But he’d finally accepted it from an equally puzzled Willie Loomis, settling on a forced explanation.  
Acknowledgement.  
By this token, he had decided, Barnabas Collins acknowledged something that had passed between the two men in Hong Kong. Not gratitude -- not properly, for both knew that Stokes’ actions hadn’t been on behalf of the stiff-necked Collins.  
And here Stokes paused in his motions, allowing himself the luxury of a thought of Julia Hoffman. The intrusion was painful. During the first few weeks following his own return from Hong Kong, he’d comforted himself with the reminder that, whatever else, she was well now. Knowing that he had played a vital part in her recovery was additional solace. Julia was well.  
It should have been enough to know that.  
But it wasn’t.  
Unbidden, distasteful thoughts too often began to snipe at his memories. He had been ill-used. Julia’s long silence was not enforced recuperation, but calculated ingratitude. Barnabas’ condescension in sending the cane. They acted oblivious to the threat of the bargain Stokes had entered into with Nicholas Blair. Their seeming callous dismissal infuriated him. He recognized these thoughts as defensive mental retorts but it was becoming harder to rationalize them away.   
Then, in calmer moments, Stokes would realize his over-reaction. In ascribing bad motives to Julia and Barnabas, was he trying to justify his still real worry that Blair might yet make good on his promise to seek Stokes out? Cold reason bade Stokes deny the possibility of another meeting... but a curious intuition made it seem inevitable.  
So, rather than dwell on the fear, Stokes had done his best to put the whole affair far from his thoughts. And for nearly two months he had succeeded. Until now.  
Damn Barnabas Collins! He should have been the one to have to suffer the indignity of a pact with Blair! And damn Julia as well! When she fixed her adoring eyes on Collins, did she ever glimpse the man whose weakness and folly had brought her so close to death?  
Trying to impose some self-control, Stokes looked down and, with strange detachment, noted the bent demitasse spoon in his grasp, tangible evidence of his still festering resentment. He dropped the casualty into the sink. He’d try to straighten it later.  
Thunder growled again and he gave up the pretense of wanting more coffee. He made his way back to his study and poured two fingers of brandy into a snifter. If he finished the drink, he knew, the drink would finish his writing for the night. But it was just as well, wasn’t it? The brandy mingled with self-pity to create a hollow fire in his chest.  
A moaning sound came from outside, and immediately behind it a dull, irregular rapping. Wind must be picking up. Should have trimmed those branches back.  
Sighing, he took another sip of his drink and glanced at the sheaf of papers on his desk. Important work, surely. But as with most antiquities, not urgent. The monograph could wait until he finished his drink and the storm abated. Beside his discarded pen, a rough, unpolished stone. You, too, will wait, he silently toasted it.  
The rapping sound was back, sharper and more insistent than before. Stokes cursed, heaved himself from the chair and went to the window to catch the offending tree limb in the act. What he saw, instead, was a figure at his door.  
He hurried to the door. Who on earth...? As he threw it open, lightning flared and the visitor’s face was clearly illuminated. Stokes froze with surprise.  
“Professor!” Nicholas Blair laughed in the brittle manner Stokes shrank to recall. “I hope you’ll invite me in.”  
Stokes moved back unthinkingly, stunned by the drama of Blair’s appearance. Blair closed the door behind him.  
“Foul night,” Blair said, doffing his fedora and coat and hanging them with grating familiarity. “But I suppose the locals grow accustomed to it.” He shrugged and smiled, walking past Stokes into the study.  
Stokes began to recover. “Blair! I never believed you would...”  
“Come, Professor! You should know by now that I am at least a man of my word. I told you we would meet again.”  
“And I had rather hoped we wouldn’t.”  
Blair’s smile broadened, now evincing genuine amusement. “You know,” he began, peeling off his gloves and slapping them into his open palm, “I had almost forgotten your eccentric wit.” He moved to the table and examined the row of bottles. “May I?” he asked, moving without permission to pour himself a glass of brandy. “You have an excellent selection, but I think the rawness of the night calls for something stronger than your favored sherry.”  
“What do you want?”  
“Aside from the brandy, you mean? Professor, your forthrightness could be construed as rudeness,” Blair chided. “However, I know you well enough to recognize your blunt demeanor as the only manner you have. And I can’t ask a leopard to change its spots, can I?” He seated himself and continued to inspect the room. “You surely recall a minor courtesy I had the opportunity to extend in a foreign land?”  
Reluctantly, Stokes nodded.  
“Good, good! Do you remember our... arrangement?”  
“I do not recall an ‘arrangement,’” Stokes said, as coldly as he could. “I remember no agreement on my part to help you...”  
“But you’re an honorable man, Professor. You’ll do what you must to discharge a debt. Doctor Hoffman is fully recovered, isn’t she?”  
“She is,” Stokes admitted, wishing he didn’t have to give Blair the satisfaction.  
Blair nodded appreciatively. “Very good. It is fortunate that I was able to intervene.”  
“That’s something I’ve long wondered about. Why did you?”  
“The doctor’s death didn’t meet my plans.”  
Stokes still suspected the other man’s motives. “Stay away from Julia!”  
“Calm yourself, Professor!” Blair admonished with amusement. “Save your warnings! I haven’t any threat for the woman. Nor even for you.”  
“State your business, man!” Stokes bellowed.  
Blair winced. “Your candor is wearing. Still,” he held up a hand to restrain another outburst, “the sooner we’ve concluded this affair, the sooner I can be on my way.”  
Few things were as capable of gladdening Stokes at that moment than the possibility of Blair’s departure. He remained silent, the only reluctant encouragement he would grant.  
“I’ve come for the Kashir Stone, Professor. Oh, you needn’t try to deny you have it.” He sipped at the brandy and paused with a flourish. “I have prepared for this moment for a very long time.”  
“There it is,” Stokes gestured to his desk. He tried to act perfectly calm. “Why not take it now?”  
“I just told you, Professor, that I have prepared for this occasion! And you suggest that I simply take the stone, knowing full well that the legend requires that it must be given or found. Theft nullifies its power.” Blair chuckled.  
Events of the summer suddenly fell into place for Stokes.  
“That’s why you came to me with the cure for Julia,” he murmured, realizing the greater implications. “You knew that I...”  
“I knew that the stone would come into your possession, yes. And I saw a way to turn that to my advantage.”  
“Then you were the one who caused Julia’s illness...”  
“Not without some personal regret.”  
“And Adam’s as well?”  
“Tut. That lure did not work entirely to my satisfaction. But I was able to turn it to my advantage in the end, as you see.”  
Stokes’ pudgy fingers fused into fists. “You nearly killed her, not to mention the others!”  
“Need I remind you that no one died, Professor? Death was not my intent -- for if it had been, you may be certain that I would not have failed.”  
Looking back at the rough stone, Stokes observed, “In any case, it is powerless without the medallion. You still lack the key.”   
“Do I?” From the folds of his jacket, Nicholas Blair extracted the Medallion of Astaroth.  
Stokes’ curiosity overcame his trepidation and Blair obligingly passed him the object for inspection. Heavy and cold, the medallion was a golden oval suspended on a thick chain. One side of the pendant had raised letters of some unfamiliar language (perhaps Aramaic?); the opposite side had a coin-sized recessed area, where the stone was intended to fit. Lost for a moment in scholarly delight, Stokes turned the medallion over in his hands, studying it closely. Then reason suddenly reasserted itself. He thrust the medallion back at Blair.  
“Take it,” he said harshly. “Take this... thing... from me now.”  
“It troubles you, Professor?” Blair asked slyly. “I would think that your fondness for relics would make this medallion quite tempting. Quite tempting indeed.”  
Tempting.  
Precisely.  
Stokes shook his head, casting away the possibilities. “I want nothing to do with it,” he lied, trying to make himself believe his own words. “No man can control it.”  
“Oh, but you’re wrong. I control it.”  
“You’re an even bigger fool than I took you for, Blair. The magic in that instrument is terrible beyond belief.” Stokes turned away abruptly. “I confess it exerts an attraction for me beyond mere academic interest. But it inevitably ends in doom.”  
Blair brushed at his lapels in disinterest at Stokes’ admission. “Then I suppose I should be grateful for your prudence—it saves us further quibbling over the stone.”  
“Even knowing the risks, you...” Stokes began, aghast.  
“I must have the power to control life—to bestow life, if it so suits me.”  
“Like Adam?” Stokes asked, mustering contempt.  
“A sorrowful experiment,” he lamented, “flawed from the start with Adam’s free will. What I require is a being more pliable, more open to suggestion...”  
“A golem.”  
Blair rose and yawned. “I’ve no doubt, Professor, that we would scale great philosophic heights were we to continue this conversation. However, as you might suspect, I have pressing business to conduct. If you will give me the stone I will be on my way.”  
Give it.  
Stokes hesitated. He couldn’t allow himself to become the conduit of ancient power to Blair’s evil purpose. He thought quickly. The stone could be found or given—not stolen. He could simply deny it to Blair.  
“Don’t dare even think it,” Blair cautioned, reading Stokes’ expression. “True, I cannot take it from you. But if your honor alone will not compel you to give it to me, I could perhaps arrange for additional inducement.” Malice shone in Blair’s dark eyes though the enigmatic half-smile never left his lips.   
The professor closed his hand around the small stone. Undecided. Desperately seeking another option.  
“Professor Stokes,” Blair prompted in a steely voice. “You have a niece living at Collinwood now, do you not?”  
A threat not totally unexpected, and yet the utterance of it shook Stokes completely. He had no choice, he realized. The stone was a small price to pay for Julia’s recovery... protection of Hallie...   
But the consequences of linking the medallion and the stone and putting them in Nicholas Blair’s possession...  
“I’m still waiting.”  
Stokes dropped the stone into Blair’s outstretched palm.  
“Thank you.” Blair strode to the foyer and reclaimed his coat. As he fitted his hat, he looked back to where Stokes still stood in the study. “Always a pleasure to deal with an honorable man.”  
Laughing silently at some private joke, Nicholas Blair left the house.  
Stokes sagged into a chair. The worst possibilities were even now beginning to occur to him.  
What had he done?

“I don’t give a damn how you do it, George!” Roger Collins exploded into the phone. “I want it stopped and stopped now!” He slammed the receiver down and stood glaring at it.  
“Antagonizing the authorities won’t help,” Elizabeth looked up from the letter she was composing.  
“Antagonizing them? What about us, Liz? Don’t we have a right to protection for our property?”  
“I’m upset about it too, but haranguing Sheriff Patterson won’t restore the damage. We need to hire another caretaker and keep the cemetery tended.”  
“Throw money at the problem,” he grumbled. “Always your solution.” He stalked to the sideboard and reached for a familiar decanter.  
“It’s early for that, Roger.”  
“After what I saw at the cemetery this afternoon, Liz—well, it’s late enough. Late enough.”  
She doubted that, but held her tongue. Her brother was drinking far too much and far too often to suit her. But she couldn’t make him realize that, and her complaints about his drinking only seemed to make him more distant. So, she returned to the original subject.  
“What did the sheriff say?”  
Roger downed the rest of his drink—to her dismay—before responding. “He said he’d send a man out to examine the damage.”  
“That’s all?”  
With a smarmy look, he reached to refill his tumbler. “And you thought I was too harsh on him.”  
“I just don’t see that anything is to be gained by insulting George Patterson. He’s an honest, decent man, and if he promised to send someone...”  
“A marvelous public servant! Let me propose a raise for him to the town council!” Roger rolled his eyes heavenward as he put the glass stopper back in the decanter. “Honestly, Liz! Why should we be grateful to a man for merely doing his job? And after the fact, at that, for if he’d been doing it right from the start, the marker in the cemetery wouldn’t have been defaced.”  
Sheer anger was driving the argument now, not logic. Soon the alcohol would add its own distortion, she knew. And that was why Elizabeth was relieved at the sudden interruption of David, for surely Roger would retreat somewhat from his surliness in the presence of his teenager.  
“Father, didn’t you once tell me there was a book about the architecture of Collinwood?”  
Roger sighed audibly, not wanting to let go of his anger but also not wanting to visit it without reason upon his son. “I think I said that there was a book on architecture that mentioned certain aspects of Collinwood. If you’re looking for it, I’m sure it’s in the study.”  
“The study,” David repeated.  
Elizabeth couldn’t restrain a laugh at her nephew’s utter seriousness. “And what has prompted this sudden interest in architecture?”  
David frowned, wanting to frame his words carefully. “Well, do you remember that storm last night? It woke me and I couldn’t go back to sleep, so I sat up for a bit. Anyway, at one point the window started rattling, and I went to check on it and I... I saw something on the roof of the east wing—something I hadn’t seen before...”  
“Some illusion of the lightning, no doubt,” Roger observed.  
David shrugged. “I don’t know. I looked around the area this morning and whatever it was I thought I saw isn’t there now. So, I thought I’d look at the book.”  
Intrigued, Elizabeth asked, “What do you think you saw?”  
“I’m not sure. It reminded me of those ugly little gargoyles you see on old buildings, except it was... moving.”  
A derisive snort escaped Roger and David looked embarrassed.  
“Like I said, I’m not sure what it was I saw. Maybe,” he cast an ambivalent glance at his father, “maybe it was just the lightning. But I thought I’d do a little research on the house...”  
“Good idea,” Roger agreed, a little too readily. “But I can save you time -- there are no gargoyles on the roof of the east wing.”  
“No... of course not,” his son hurried to add, in an attempt to relieve some of the awkwardness he suddenly felt. “But maybe there’s something that I could have mistaken...”  
Elizabeth rescued him. “I’ll be interested to hear what you find out, David.”  
Brightening with relief, he turned to leave. “Sure!”  
“You encourage him in these fantasies, Liz,” Roger said, shaking his head at the teenager’s departure.  
“And you discourage him, Roger. As his father, you should be more supportive...”  
“As my own father was with me?”  
The comment hit its mark.  
After a few moments of silence, Elizabeth said quietly, “That shouldn’t be an excuse. For either of us.”  
He put down his drink, untouched. “There are some papers I need to review. When the sheriff’s man comes, please call me...”  
She nodded, not making eye contact, and he, after a slight hesitation, strode from the drawing room. As his footsteps faded away on the carpeted hall, she sighed with remembered sadness. Even thirty-five years after his death, Jamison Collins’ cruelty was still keenly felt. How many generations would it take to obliterate the scars it left? She could understand and forgive Roger’s bitterness, but how could David be expected to understand?  
There was a shrill burst from the phone, and, shaking off her reverie, she went to answer it. “Hello? Why, Elliot, I was just saying last night that we haven’t... No, no trouble at all... Tonight?... Yes, I can tell her, but it seems a little sudden... I understand... Elliot, is there anything wrong? You sound... Of course, if that’s what you wish... Goodbye.”  
Confusion lined Elizabeth’s face as she replaced the phone. The whole conversation was very strange. Professor Stokes was normally so measured and mannered. But the man to whom she had just spoken bore little resemblance—he was agitated, distracted, quite unlike his usual self. He had arranged for his niece Hallie, a guest at Collinwood, to visit distant relatives and   
was insistent to the point of rudeness that she depart this very night.  
Another perplexing event in a day rife with them.

With a sigh of disgust, David Collins allowed the pages of the book to fan shut.  
No gargoyles. No parapets. Nothing at all that might explain away his sighting of the previous night. Had he just imagined it?  
His memory instantly protested. In his mind’s eye, the image was still sharp: Dark against a sky that was paler for its restless clouds, a figure crouched on the very edge of the far roof. And movement—how he had started when he realized that it moved! -- was stilted, jerky, altogether unfamiliar. That was, in fact, what added to the puzzlement. Whatever he had sighted that night, between bursts of lightning, was something so unusual that he couldn’t assign a name to it.  
But it didn’t have to have a name in order to scare him.  
He went to the window and swung open the colored pane. There was a fringe of fading light far on the horizon and a clear, cold sky.  
There were no jerkily moving shadows in the foreground.  
No reason to worry.  
So why did he?

Julia exhaled, blowing a cloud of smoke. This was an indulgence, increasingly rare. Barnabas had never spoken on the subject, but she could see in his expression that he was baffled by the attraction of tobacco. So, she seldom smoked anymore.  
But this morning she sat in the late morning sun, coffee cooling in the delicate bone china cup at her elbow, a thin finger of smoke curling above her head, and she thought.  
Back at Wyndcliffe, back in her tiny sweatbox of medical research, had she ever yearned for such a life? An unhurried morning amid the unfamiliar splendor of an Asian capital—no appointments, no agenda—  
She knew better.  
Julia Hoffman was not so professionally regimented that she was unable to enjoy the leisure; in fact, if the undue time she’d spent at Collinwood over the previous three years had given her any quality, it was that of patience. Spirits and time travel did not lend themselves to schedules.  
Yet these last few months had seemed confining, not liberating.  
Perhaps that was because she had never considered her work as work—it had been a vital outlet for her. As necessary as air, as water, as sleep.  
She did miss it.  
And she also missed a home—but strictly as a concept. Work wasn’t home, and although her office had been comfortable, she wasn’t inclined to wax nostalgic over it. Nor that impersonal cubicle that was her apartment, the one that she’d scarcely visited in the last year. In retrospect, it now seemed like a great, overpriced clothes closet.  
It might have been Collinwood that she was missing, the familiarity of the space and the persons who inhabited it. Even the odd mish-mash of furniture that melded three centuries into near indefinable tastes.  
Perhaps she was missing, for the first time in her life, a readily definable goal.  
With a final drag, Julia stubbed the cigarette out in a fancifully painted ceramic ashtray. She heard a door open and close.  
Barnabas entered, dropping a newspaper and mail upon the table and reaching for the carafe to pour a cup of coffee. “I hope I didn’t wake you as I left.”  
“I wish you had. The rain made me want to sleep in. Where were you off to so early?”  
“I needed to transfer some funds.” Watching her flip through envelopes he finally added with amusement, “There’s one from Elizabeth and another from Willie.”  
She opened Elizabeth’s first.

_Collinwood, October 30, 197-_

_Dear Julia,  
What a surprise your letter was! And such wonderful, unexpected news!   
Why on earth couldn’t you have given us some hint?   
\-- But enough of my protests! I’m so delighted to hear that you and Barnabas have married that I’m willing to forgive your impetuousness at having neglected to invite us! You know, of course, that Roger and I send our very best wishes. When are you coming home? I’m so anxious to see you and welcome you to the family!  
Write me with your arrival instructions! Love—and congratulations! -- to you both!  
Elizabeth  
P.S. You have been receiving some rather official-looking mail from Wyndcliffe. I’ve selected the most ominous pieces to forward. Hope it isn’t as dire as it appears!_

Julia held up two long envelopes, embossed with the distinctive Wyndcliffe address. “My past calling, Barnabas. It wants to know if it will have any place in my future.”  
Frowning at her words, he opened the letter from Willie. At once he brightened. “‘Dear Barnabas and Julia,’” he read aloud. “’Hope you are still okay. The house is fine. I’m fine too. I’m not much of a letter-writer. The folks at Collinwood want to know when you’re coming home. That’s all. Willie.’” Barnabas looked up with a faint smile. “Willie always did have a certain refreshing economy of expression.”  
Seeing Julia’s vacant stare, he asked, “Was there someone else from whom you expected a letter?”  
“No, not really. Although I thought we might have heard something from Elliot by now.”  
“He’s probably involved in some project and unable to tear himself away.”  
Such a thing sounded like Elliot Stokes, so she finally sighed agreement. “I suppose you’re right.”  
“Julia, I’ve been thinking we should move on.”  
“Leave Singapore?”  
“If you agree.”  
“Oh, yes, Barnabas,” she said with a relief more fervent than either of them was prepared for. “Very much.”  
He drained the last of his coffee. “Excellent. I was thinking of a visit to Quentin—“  
“Quentin? Not Collinwood?” He looked up blankly. “Julia, you know my...” Shutting her eyes and leaning her forehead against the backs of her hands, she asked softly, “Where?”  
“Paris,” he returned, troubled by her reaction.

You’re not concentrating!” Dr. McKenzie leaned around the partition to scowl at her. “Once again, please.”  
The trouble was, though, that she was concentrating—but not on the focus of the exercise. Other images, persistent and worrying, kept clouding her thoughts. And through it all was a feeling of incipient foreboding... danger...  
“You may as well take a break, Carolyn,” he said, disappointment plain upon his goateed face. “We’re not accomplishing anything now.” Then, as he saw her faraway expression, he became concerned. “Carolyn?”  
The sensation of being someplace else faded. Apologetically, she looked up. “I’m sorry. Can we try again?”  
“I think I’d rather hear about what happened just now.”  
“Off gathering wool?”  
“Don’t make light of your gifts, child,” he scolded. “I recognize that look. Now, tell me what you saw.”  
“An empty cemetery. Snow—swirling on the wind. A big bird. Terrible danger...”  
“Imminent danger at home?”  
“Yes, I think so.” She looked at him blankly. “What should I do?”  
“Go. If the vision was that affecting I doubt if anything will reassure you as much as seeing your family safe and well. And it is possible that this prescient episode will enable you to avert some danger—perhaps alter the outcome. No, you should go home. Go now.”  
“But can I change anything?”  
“I can’t say—but you’ll have little peace if you stay here and agonize over the premonition of a calamity at home.” He helped her on with her coat and, in an effort to downplay some of the seriousness of the moment, added, “I will, of course, expect a full report from you when you return.”  
“Thank you, Dr. McKenzie,” she murmured, leaving the laboratory and heading toward the stairs. Already more images were forcing themselves into her consciousness. New visions that chilled her to the deepest recesses of her soul...  
Uncle Roger, still and bloodied in a wrecked car...  
David menaced by a horrible thing, something shaped like a bird but with movements as precise and calculated as a reptile, with eyes not of this world...  
And Julia Hoffman—running to Widow’s Hill with single-minded purpose...

An hour later, in Collinsport, Roger Collins finally started his car, comforted that, at least, all the boats had been recalled. Based on the prediction of a winter storm, he had sent the plant staff home much earlier, and now, having done all that an executive could do at a plant meant expressly for manual labor, he turned his thoughts to home.  
He’d never hired a replacement for old Matthew. Not that that had proved a bad decision so far. Firewood could be delivered and stacked for a decent price. Most repairs seemed to call for a specialist anyway—a plumber, an electrician, a roofer—and to his frugal New England mind a full-time handyman was a luxury. Still, chores like bringing in wood or checking the rooms in the East and West Wings seemed beyond the scope of Mrs. Johnson’s duties. And David was still too young to be relied upon with any real confidence.  
That left only Roger to attend to the realities of winter in Maine.  
If some casualty struck, he supposed he could prevail upon Loomis for assistance. That is, of course, if Loomis wasn’t drunk—Roger figured him for the type that drank.  
During summer storms, the tower room had developed a leak. He hadn’t thought about it for months, but now it seemed of gargantuan proportions. If the roof was weak, snow and ice might buckle it completely. And even if the roof held, there was still the probability of more leaks and increased damage in the spring of the next year.  
Roger sighed and turned onto the Ackerman Road that ran along the coast, from Collinsport to the estate. The sea wind was already depositing the snow in drifts. The lane he drove was remarkably free of snow, but it was fast accumulating in the opposite lane. He was glad he was heading away from town rather than toward it.  
Probably lose power tonight, too, he thought glumly. Better remember to check the diesel generator. There were plenty of fireplaces at Collinwood, God knew, and none of the Collinses would freeze or starve from a night spent without electricity—but why live like barbarians when the comforts and conveniences of modern life could be had for a few cents’ worth of fuel?  
Firewood. The generator. Probably ought to check the tower room, too.  
Clicking with the efficiency of a tabulating machine, Roger Collins’ mind was slow to comprehend the reality of the sudden obstruction in the road.  
He braked instinctively. A single second without effect told him the car resisted stopping on the icy road. He turned into the skid in a practiced attempt to stop it, but the car didn’t straighten its path. The guardrail came closer—closer—  
His last conscious thought was a reprimand about seat belts.

Quentin returned. “Sorry,” he apologized. “Amy had a dream, that’s all.”  
“She’s growing into a fine young lady,” Julia commented.  
He shot her a grateful look. “I hope I’m doing well by her. I have only a few years, you know, before I’ll have to fade from her life. And she’s all I have now.”  
Seeing Barnabas suddenly turn away, Quentin hastened to add, “That isn’t an indictment, Barnabas. You’re my friend, and I know you did all you could for Chris.” He looked to Julia. “Both of you. I know what you tried to accomplish. If anyone failed Chris, it was me—and it happened nearly a century ago.”  
Overcome by memories far more accurate and less charitable, Barnabas nodded in lieu of reply. Even if he could exonerate himself of the guilt he felt over Chris, there was still the memory of Tom Jennings to haunt him. The perfidy of that unspoken lie shadowed his heart.  
“Barnabas—please.” Quentin clasped his cousin’s shoulder. “You did what you could, and certainly Chris died through no fault of yours. Forgive yourself.”  
“Have you forgiven yourself?” Barnabas countered, finding his voice.  
Quentin’s hand fell to his side and his face twisted with irony. “Sometimes I think so. I keep trying, anyway.” His eyes met Barnabas’. “At least you can cling to the redemption of a cure. I have nothing.”  
After the pause of a few seconds, Julia offered, “You have Amy.”  
His lips tightened and he nodded. “You’re right, Julia. I do have Amy. Perhaps I may yet purchase my salvation through her.” He looked at his newest relative with respect and fondness. “I’d long suspected Barnabas loved you. How on earth did he cause you to weaken and marry him?”  
Julia and Barnabas exchanged a glance, and she laughed out loud. “Once more, Quentin, you’re wrong. I’ve been flinging myself at him for years.”  
“Oh? And what changed?”  
“I’m not sure,” she hedged. “But, in any case, he finally noticed.”  
Pulling a bottle from a bath of ice, he recharged their champagne, then raised his glass. “To Julia—for having had the persistence to keep flinging—“ he grinned at her, “—And to Barnabas, for finally having had the good sense to capitulate.”  
“Here, here,” Barnabas murmured.  
The younger man tossed off the aperitif. “Drink up,” he urged. “Matilde will call us to dinner in a few moments—she’s quite prompt.”  
“Is she a good cook?”  
“Good enough for a housekeeper engaged on such short notice, and under such peculiar circumstances. Most importantly, she’s wonderful for Amy.” Quentin shrugged. “I’m often out for dinner anyway.” He looked mournfully at his empty glass before setting it down. “But you’ve cleverly distracted me from my interrogation. I want you to tell me all about it.”  
“All about what?” Barnabas asked, feigning ignorance.  
“You’ve perfected the art of understatement, cousin, but even I can see that there is a fantastic tale behind your recent adventure. You owe me a full accounting—for Chris, if for no other reason. Yes, begin there—begin with Chris.”  
Barnabas complied, but the interruption of dinner made it hours before he finished.  
As they lingered over coffee, Quentin ran his finger around the rim of his cup. “So, as I understand this, there are two men of mystery in your story. First, the man in the apothecary.” He looked to Julia. “Are you certain you hadn’t met this man before, perhaps when you first arrived?”  
She shook her head. “I can’t remember much until I woke in the hospital. But, no, Quentin, I’d never met the man prior to that encounter.”  
“Well, making him a psychic as well as a benevolent chemist seems a stretch. His presence seems quite coincidental—lucky for Adam, anyway, if not you.” Quentin frowned. “We’ve been assuming that Adam’s illness, and thus Barnabas’ illness, was simply bad luck.”  
Barnabas leaned forward. “Go on. This interests me.”  
The other man rubbed his hands together. “Suppose Adam was deliberately infected—“  
Julia pushed away her coffee. “Quentin,” she chided. “Tropical fevers aren’t like chain letters. They aren’t weapons.”  
“But they are, Julia. Don’t governments stockpile biological weapons as the final defense?”  
“All right,” she conceded. “But what would be the point of infecting Adam?”  
Quentin shrugged. “I can’t think of one. But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t one. And besides, who’s to say that Adam was the intended victim? Perhaps someone knows about the link to Barnabas.”  
Barnabas had taken most of this in silence. A thought occurred to him and he opened his mouth to speak it, only to decide against giving it voice. Could Julia have been the intended victim? It was the most frightening possibility, and one he hadn’t considered until Quentin’s armchair ruminations just now. If true, if Julia had been the focus of a deliberate death plot, then she might still be at risk. Staying away from Collinsport suddenly held less threat, for this would-be assassin (if indeed there had been one) had been able to reach across the world to strike at her in Hong Kong.   
He said, instead, “What do you make of Jamais?”  
“The character you met on the ship? Perhaps a confidence man who backed off at the last moment.”  
“No,” Barnabas disagreed. “He was something more. I just wish I knew what it was.”  
Quentin tossed his napkin on the table and grinned. “You two meet such entertaining people! Let’s discuss them further in the other room. Cordial, Julia?”

Willie saw the fist coming but was unable to dodge in time. It connected, slamming his lower jaw into the upper, numbing his face, and sending stars dancing before his eyes. He staggered backward, and for a brief moment mistook the ringing in his ears as his name gasped aloud.  
The man who had just thrown the punch grinned to his mates. “I told you, boys—this won’t take long.”  
Smiling a crooked smile of his own, Willie agreed, “Not too long.” Then he landed one fist to his assailant’s paunch, and another to the man’s chin.  
Onlookers caught the man, steadied him for a moment, then flung him back at Willie. Once caught off-guard, though, the man was unable to recover. He positioned himself in front of Willie in time for a third blow that yielded a dull popping sound and a sudden spurt of blood from the victim’s nose.  
Swaying, Willie paused to make sure the other man was down—or at least sufficiently distracted. None of the others looked like they intended to renew the confrontation, so he backed discreetly away from the crowd, hoping to find a quiet corner in the bar where he could reclaim his anonymity.  
“Willie?”  
He turned. “Carolyn?”  
“Are you all right?”  
“Oh—guess you saw that.” A little sheepish.  
“How could I help but see it? What was it all about?”  
Wearily, he dropped onto the bench of an empty booth. “Long story.” He looked up. “You look great, Carolyn. What’re you doin’ here?”  
“Well, frankly, you look like hell.” Laughing, she squeezed his sleeve. “But it’s good to see you, anyway.”  
A worn barmaid arrived with two mugs of beer. “On the house. Maybe this’ll shut that creep up.” Making what passed for a warm smile, she added, “Here’s some ice, too. It’ll keep the swelling down.”  
He ducked his head in understanding and pushed the ice aside to reach the beer.  
“Rescuing damsels in distress?” Carolyn asked.  
“Bernie’s got a big mouth when he drinks. He got a little outta line...”  
She smiled knowingly. “I’m impressed.”  
“So, what’re you doin’ here? I thought you was goin’ to school in Boston...”  
“I gave myself a reprieve. Thought I’d come home for a little visit and make sure everyone was okay.” She raked a thumbnail through the frost on her mug.  
“How’s school?”  
“Interesting. I’m still pinching myself at my luck in getting in.” She made a face. “Well, luck and Professor Stokes, I suppose.”  
That seemed familiar, almost like it should remind him of something, but he couldn’t quite place what it was. Suddenly, he felt awkward. “I didn’t think you was comin’ back, Carolyn. Ever. I mean, when you left Collinsport, it seemed awfully final, like.”  
“I know. So much happened in those last few months—I missed Jeb so.” She paused. “I thought I was leaving for good, too—and it hasn’t even been a year!”  
Picking up the towel-wrapped ice, he touched it to his eye and gave a short laugh of self-deprecation. “Well, not much ever changes around here.”  
“But Mother said something about a trip that you and Barnabas took—and him being ill...”  
“I s’pose it has been an interestin’ year,” he conceded.  
“Go on,” she urged.  
He shrugged. “Barnabas caught some kind of fever—made him real sick. Never told the folks up at the big house this, but for a while we thought we might lose him...”  
“No!”  
“It didn’t look good. Then, he got better, but Julia, who’d just about worn herself out tendin’ to him, she got sick, and we had to go to Hong Kong...” He hoped she didn’t even ask about that non sequitur.  
“And --?”  
“Well, Julia got well again.”  
Carolyn smiled wryly. “Why do I have the feeling that you’ve left out most of the story?”  
“They got married, too,” he offered.  
“Married? -- Barnabas and Julia?? That’s certainly news! Mother never told me about that! I can’t wait to see them and congratulate them!”  
“Uh... They haven’t come back yet.”  
“They’re still in Hong Kong?”  
“Sort of. They’re tourin’ around somewhere over there.”  
She pushed back in her seat, surprised by the revelations and amused at the characteristic inexactitude with which he revealed the information. “You haven’t changed a bit, Willie.” Then, as he puzzled over how to take that comment, she added, “I’ve missed you.”  
He tried to grin back, but the puffiness around his eye made it look more like a wince. “I’ve missed you, too, Carolyn. It’s been kinda lonely around here, what with you gone and Barnabas and Julia away and Professor Stokes...”  
That was it! That was what he’d been trying to remember.  
“Willie? What is it?”  
“The Professor! I seen him the other day at the post office. He was in a big hurry, didn’t really wanna stop and talk. Like he didn’t have time to be bothered.”  
“Well, what did he say?”  
Willie scratched his head. “He wanted to know where Barnabas and Julia were—what was their mailin’ address, that sort of thing.” He frowned. “The Professor talks kinda strange, y’know. Sorta like everythin’ is a puzzle and you walk away and you’re never quite sure what it was he was tellin’ you.”  
“How do you mean?”  
Following a long pause, he suddenly shrugged. “I don’t know! But I guess it couldn’t be too important, could it?” He looked at his watch. “Hey, we’d better be gettin’ on our ways. Weather is s’pposed to turn real nasty tonight.”  
He helped her on with her long coat, and donned his own thick sailor’s peacoat, and they traded the lights, noise, and smoke of the Blue Whale for the brittle night. Snow was falling thickly. Willie cast an uncertain glance at Carolyn’s light sportscar, then at the road, now invisible under the snow’s mantle.  
“Maybe you oughta let me drive you—“ His words choked off at the sudden frown of pain that crossed her face. He grabbed her elbow. “Carolyn? -- what is it?”  
She didn’t respond immediately and that frightened him even more. “Carolyn!” he shouted, feeling helpless and suffocating under the silence of the snowfall.  
Finally, she held up a hand, begging time. She shook her head. The pain was still there, but not as intense as at first. “I’m okay,” she managed raggedly.  
“I don’t care what you say, I’m drivin’ you home. C’mon.” He propelled her to the familiar station wagon, opened the passenger door and settled her within, before returning to scrape snow and a thin layer of ice from the windshield. Shaking the accumulated snow from his coat and his bare head, he dove into the car and started it with a vengeance.  
“You feelin’ better?” he demanded.  
“A little,” she nodded weakly.  
“What happened?”  
She sighed in frustration. “I don’t know. It’s this weird feeling I’ve had all day... it’s why I drove up here tonight, despite the weather. Just this spooky feeling that something’s about to happen...”  
“You didn’t look like you were havin’ a spooky feelin’, Carolyn. You looked like you was hurtin’.”  
“I was.” She looked bewildered at the admission. “It did hurt. It didn’t earlier, but it did just now.”  
Grim-faced, Willie put the car in gear and pulled out of the pub’s parking area. “I better get you home.”   
The steering wheel was sluggish in his hands, bespeaking a road clotted with snow and protesting tires. Although he would have dearly loved to have goosed the engine for such an emergency, he didn’t dare under such conditions.  
“Might as well settle back, Carolyn. Road is bad. Gettin’ you home might take a while.”  
She leaned her forehead against the cold glass of the passenger-side window. Perhaps it would ease the memory of the pain—searing, blinding. Perhaps it would even dull the vividness of the image in her mind’s eye... 

After months spent in foreign lands, the phone’s shrill, staccato burst of rings was unfamiliar. Julia, trained by long years such night-shattering calls, reacted first, pulling the phone to the ear not buried in her pillow.  
“—llo,” she breathed, her enunciation still slurred by sleep. “Yes, I’ll hold for the call.” Julia’s voice became clear and she pulled herself up on one elbow. Feeling Barnabas’ wakefulness beside her, she covered the phone’s mouthpiece with a hand as she explained, “From home.”  
Wordlessly, he threw back covers, slipped on his dressing gown, and padded around to her side of the bed.  
“Yes, I’m still here...” Pause. “Hello?... Willie, it’s good to hear your voice, too, but what... Yes, we’re fine—why?... Carolyn?... Roger?...” Julia’s eyes widened. “Oh, no! When? I’m so sorry! But the others, are they safe?”  
Barnabas’ eyebrows knit together, detecting family calamity in Julia’s broken phrases and her tragic tone.  
“I don’t know,” Julia was saying into the telephone. “I’m not sure what time it is—wait, it’s five thirty,” she exclaimed, squinting at the face of an old-fashioned clock. Her eyes turned to Barnabas. “I don’t know, Willie. I’ll try. Give our best to the family, and get some rest. We’ll call you in a few hours.”  
Only one word came to Barnabas’ lips. “Who?”  
“Roger.” She slipped out of the covers and joined him on the cool parquet floor. “Car accident, a few hours ago. Barnabas, it’s very bad.”  
“I thought I heard Carolyn’s name...”  
“She’s there, in Collinsport. Some kind of premonition brought her to visit the family—“  
“But not in time to prevent the accident,” Barnabas finished grimly.  
Even in the dim light of the room he could see Julia’s eyes flash. “Not that accident, perhaps. But, according to Willie, she believes that this is only the first in a series of connected events... and we are involved, too.”  
With the dread of a nightmare realized, Barnabas sighed heavily and drew Julia against him. 

No answer.” Willie slammed the pay phone receiver back into its hook.   
“Where would the professor be at this hour?” Carolyn asked.  
“Search me,” Willie shrugged. “Hey, why don’t you let me take you home now? The doctor said there’s nothing more we can do but wait, and your mother’s with him. It’s stopped snowin’, and the plows have probably had a chance to work on the roads...”  
“I’d feel like such a traitor, running off and leaving Mother alone here.”  
“She told you to go home several times already. Besides, if you get some proper rest tonight, you’ll feel better and can relieve her here tomorrow.”  
She had to admit that his argument made sense.  
“And David may need you tonight or in the mornin’.” He could tell from her expression that he’d struck paydirt. “It ain’t right to dump Mrs. Johnson with breakin’ the news to him.” The irony of the family having dumped both Willie and Mrs. Johnson, and a parade of servants before them, with equally unsavory tasks went without note.  
“I guess you’re right, Willie. I ought to be there for David, if he needs me. And tomorrow morning I can come back and sit with Uncle Roger while Mother gets some rest at home.” Having reached her decision, she brightened, as if a weight had been lifted from her. “I’m glad you’re here to take care of me, Willie,” she said.   
For the second time that long night he felt embarrassed at someone’s admiration. Changing the subject, he offered, “Did I tell you I reached Julia and Barnabas? They’re gonna call back in a while and let me know if they’re gonna come home.”  
Carolyn’s cheer began to fade. “Let’s hope they’re not coming home for a funeral.”

“No, no—of course, Barnabas, I understand,” Quentin’s voice, weary but firm, came through the telephone. “I only wish I could go—but I can’t. I really can’t risk going back. You understand, don’t you?”  
Quentin didn’t know that he sought understanding from one whose feelings on the subject were far more vehement than his own.  
“Dammit. Terrible thing to happen to Roger. Hope he pulls through. Tell Elizabeth I’m thinking of her. She and Carolyn were always kind, to me and to Amy. And David! He’s so like Jamison was—I see the resemblance, and it’s far more than just in the features.” He sighed and Barnabas could envision him shaking his head in disgust and sadness. “We seem to have more than our fair share of calamities, don’t we?” An audible sigh. “Give Elizabeth my best, Barnabas.”  
“You may rely upon it, Quentin. We’ll get word to you as soon as we can.”  
“Yes, yes. And, Barnabas—take care of yourself. And Julia. Carolyn may be right.”  
“I know—and I derive little pleasure from that knowledge.”  
“I can imagine,” Quentin replied.   
Barnabas dropped the phone into its cradle and turned to Julia, who was sorting through passports and visas and ten different colors of currency. “Quentin thinks we should be careful.”  
“Did he suggest what it is that we’re to be wary of?” she asked with a wry, exasperated expression.  
Barnabas chose not to answer, instead walking to the windowed terrace of the suite. “Hasn’t experience taught us that every unexplained occurrence at Collinwood brings its own risks?”

Elliot Stokes’ hand shook as he reached again for the tumbler. Little brandy remained but he thirstily drained the glass and then greedily eyed the decanter.  
No.   
Mustn’t succumb to intoxication, not now. He hadn’t slept in two nights, not since Nicholas Blair had visited him. Sleep wouldn’t come... and Stokes feared that it would be punctuated by nightmares if he coaxed it. He had settled, instead, for a weary semi-conscious collapse on the divan in his study. And as he waited for the inevitable next surge of adrenaline—his energy seemed cyclical, cresting after three- or four-hour intervals—he contemplated his next action.  
The book had been mailed. That comforted him, as if some failsafe mechanism had been initiated. No matter how bad things became, at least he would know that Barnabas had received the journal and would know the danger. Perhaps he would be able to divine a course of action to nullify the power of the medallion or to wrest it from Blair’s control.  
Momentary sleight of hand had permitted Stokes to retain the Kashir Stone and pass to Blair a mere facsimile. He knew he should be grateful that the ruse had worked this long—over thirty-six hours now—but he likewise knew that it was a tenuous reprieve. Blair would be back, and this time Stokes would have no means to resist.  
Still, he had removed Hallie from the direct line of fire.  
And Elliot Stokes had saved an escape for himself. It was temporary relief, but it would protect him from supernatural assault. With a galvanizing sigh, he committed himself and flung the I Ching wands across the tabletop. He put the wands parallel to each other, reluctantly acknowledging the prophetic hexagram revealed: The K’an or twenty-nineth hexagram. He knew it represented water, meaning trouble and danger. Not simply danger—cataclysmic disaster. It implied a path that was as dangerous to advance upon as it was to retreat.  
It merely confirmed what he’d already known.  
There was no going back now.   
Stokes quelled his panic and fought to visualize the door. Dangerous or not, it held his only escape.

After only two hours of half-sleep, Willie shoved the afghan aside and sat up. Carolyn had offered one of the ever-ready Collinwood guest rooms—why on earth had he opted for the drawing room sofa instead? Was it some pretense of manly indestructability? Was he still trying to impress Carolyn Stoddard?  
He massaged the knotted muscles in his neck. Surely a bed would’ve been more comfortable than this. And warmer, too, he noted, looking ruefully at the cold fireplace.  
His watch confirmed that it was still an indecent hour. He couldn’t expect much company at this hour. It would probably be a couple of hours before even Mrs. Johnson stirred, so he supposed he was on his own if he wanted a cup of coffee.  
And coffee sounded like just the ticket.   
He swung his legs over the edge of the sofa and tottered to switch on the light. Blinking against the brightness, he padded down the paneled corridor to the dark kitchen, where he fumbled briefly in finding another light switch.   
And in the interval before finding the switch he glanced out the window and was astonished to see distant movement in the darkness. He dropped his hand and stared. It couldn’t be! Something was on the roof over the main house, something that scuttled, crab-like and menacing.   
Willie bolted back up the passageway, rounded the main staircase and galloped up the stairs, taking them two and three at a time. Tearing down the corridor, he burst into a room just inside where he estimated that thing skulked. He ran over and threw up the window and looked into the darkness beyond.   
The moon had sunk low into the trees and the snow muffled even the normal night sounds of a cold winter’s night. Complete silence met Willie’s ardent listening. He craned his upper torso in the window, scanning for movement, some trace of the image he’d glimpsed from below. But nothing was forthcoming, and after a few minutes he withdrew into the relative warmth of the room and slowly closed the window.

A few hours later, Willie drove Carolyn back to the hospital so that she might relieve Elizabeth’s vigil. As he’d feared, the roads were treacherous with ice and packed snow and the short trip took three times as long as it would have under better conditions.   
On the return trip to Collinwood, Elizabeth looked weary and distracted. She seemed so subdued that he hesitated to interrupt her thoughts, but he finally spoke. “How is he?” She looked grateful for the respite conversation provided. “Doctor Pierce thinks today is critical. If Roger doesn’t...” There was a sharp intake of breath as she caught herself and made some inner decision not to give voice to that possibility. “Thank goodness Carolyn is here.”  
“Yeah. That’s kind of weird, huh? I mean, her having that feeling that something was going to happen.”  
“Carolyn has always been... sensitive... in this way. How is David reacting?”  
“Well, he’s worried, of course, but kids are strong. He’ll be okay.”  
She sighed. “I’ll talk to him when I get home.”  
“For a little bit, maybe. I got orders to make sure you get rest and a decent meal.”  
He delivered her into the hands of the waiting Mrs. Johnson and David, then excused himself to check on the Old House and get some proper rest himself.

Hours later, Willie woke to an unfamiliar noise. The long shadows in his room told him that it was late afternoon; he glanced at his watch in confirmation and saw that it was nigh on five o’clock. He heard another sound—it sounded like a voice—and rose rapidly, shaking himself awake.  
Coming onto the landing, he saw figures in the fading light of the foyer and it took him a minute to make the necessary connection.  
“Barnabas? Julia?”  
She turned and spotted him at the top of the stairs. “Willie!”  
He stumbled down the steps in his haste, and she ignored his outstretched hand and embraced him instead.  
His smile conveyed his delighted embarrassment at her effusive greeting. “You look so good, Julia!” He looked a few feet away, where Barnabas was hanging their coats on the familiar wooden stand. “I didn’t expect you till later in the week. You coulda told me you were catching the very next flight,” he said with exasperation that was instantly belied by a grin on his face. “I coulda picked you up at the airport, coulda had things ready...”  
Barnabas offered his hand and Willie clasped it.  
“Willie.” Barnabas paused to clear his throat of emotion that threatened to choke his first words. He hadn’t expected his response to returning home, to seeing his old friend, to be so deep and so immediate. “You’ve done a fine job with the house. It looks just the same.”  
Willie laughed. “Not quite ‘just the same,’ Barnabas. I’ve made a few changes. There’s a phone now, and I had the place wired for electricity.” He tried to gauge the other man’s reaction to this news. “You don’t mind, do you?”  
Julia patted his arm. “Of course not. If you hadn’t—I would have.”  
Barnabas shrugged agreement, and that small gesture made Willie feel better.  
“Let me get your bags...” “Leave them for now, Willie—they’re not important. Let’s sit and talk for a while.”   
Within a few minutes, Willie had started logs burning in the fireplace and left them long enough to put coffee on.  
In the interval while he was gone, Julia prompted softly, “Tell me what you’re thinking.”  
Barnabas turned with an indulgent smile. “It is good to be home, Julia. Perhaps I’m wrong about the danger. Perhaps my fears are imagined.” He stroked her face.  
Willie returned with a tray of steaming mugs. When his company had been served, he pushed back into his chair with a contented expression. “You both look great. Guess all that travelin’ agrees with you.”  
Julia lifted an eyebrow. Was Willie making reference to the last time he saw them? Neither of them had been wholly well then, she only days recovered from that dreadful fever and Barnabas still gaunt with worry and his own fatigue. She preferred not to think about that time, let alone discuss it. So, she instead asked, “How have you been?”  
“Okay. It’s been pretty quiet around here, having the place all to myself and all. Had some excitement a few weeks ago when a tree fell over in a storm—damaged the roof and eaves along the north edge of the house, but I was able to fix it.”  
“You should have called somebody to do that for you,” Barnabas admonished. “I left an account for your use...”  
“No point in spendin’ the money,” Willie shrugged in return. “I could do the work. So, I did it.”  
“How is the family?”  
“Don’t see ‘em much, to tell the truth. Before the accident, Roger was raisin’ holy hell over some vandalism to the cemetery—probably just kids, you know, but some of the markers were disfigured.” Willie shook his head. “He still doesn’t like me bein’ in this house. But Carolyn, she stops by sometimes, when she visits Collinwood.”  
“And Professor Stokes?”  
“Seemed okay a few days ago when I saw him in town. He wanted to know if you were still in Singapore. Said somethin’ about ‘The note has come due.’” He thought for a moment, seemed on the verge of adding an editorial comment, then shrugged again. “Well, I’m sure he can explain it to you.” He pulled himself to his feet. “Now you two just keep your seats, and I’ll go out and get those bags. Then you can get settled and we’ll go on up to the big house.”

The early darkness of winter was beginning to smudge the sky, and the landscape resembled some photographic negative, charcoal sky over an unmarred mantle of bluing snow. He knew the snow should be white but it was some trick of the light that made it appear differently.  
Looking from the window, he strained to remember why that was. Perception had been ever present—sensation, a certain if vague understanding of cause and effect—but the framework of reference had been shrouded in mist for so long.  
For example, the cat.  
He knew he’d been stroking the soft fur. Felt the quiver of the animal’s small heart. Heard the growl of its contentment. Looked into the mute blue eyes.  
Somehow the realization occurred that he’d reached the edge of the fog.  
He looked down at the cat in his arms.  
Unfamiliar... and yet familiar.  
The white cat twisted to look into his eyes. Odd, how reassuring that feline stare! Had he liked cats before?...  
Before... before what?  
A woman’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “Time for dinner, Joe.”

“Julia! Barnabas! Come in, come in!” The Collins matron embraced them warmly and helped them with their heavy coats.  
Julia noted the ill-concealed anxiety in Elizabeth’s expression and took the older woman’s hand. “We came as soon as we learned of the accident. Willie tells us Roger’s condition is serious but likely to improve. How are you bearing up?”  
Elizabeth gave a wan smile. “I’m fine. Mrs. Johnson has been looking after me.” She looked up as Willie Loomis entered the foyer. “And, of course, it’s been a great comfort to know we could rely upon Willie.”  
He ducked his head in acknowledgement. “Is Carolyn...?”  
“She’s upstairs, sleeping. Roger seemed stable, so the doctor recommended she come home. She didn’t want to disturb you again, so she found an intrepid cab driver.”  
He was surprised that such consideration had been extended to him. And a little hurt, too. Used to being taken for granted, he was left feeling oddly neglected to learn that Carolyn had called a stranger to convey her home. He didn’t know what to say, so he nodded meekly and fell in behind Barnabas when they turned to go to the drawing room.  
“Julia, sit down, tell me all about this extended honeymoon.” She looked over to where Barnabas stood near the fire. “Barnabas left so abruptly last summer. I never believed he was entirely over that illness and I was so worried when we heard that you had contracted the same fever...”  
Julia tried not to wince at another recollection of the events of the previous summer. Under the best of circumstances, she had never been one to dwell on events of the past. And under these particular circumstances, she still felt vulnerable and weak at the memory of those panicky days. She had no desire to relive them, so she spoke quickly, “The traveling has been nice, but I’ve been looking forward to seeing good friends again.”  
“Family now,” Elizabeth corrected with a smile.  
“Family... Funny, I spent so much time here that you would think that I should have felt that way anyway.”  
“Speaking of family,” Barnabas interrupted, “Quentin sends his best.”  
“Quentin! He was in Singapore?”  
“We visited him, in Paris. It was there, in fact, that Willie’s call reached us. Had we been anywhere else, it would have taken much longer for our return trip. As it happened, we were able to take advantage of the next flight.”  
“I’m so very glad you did come back, Barnabas. The estate has seemed so much the poorer without you. And with Julia gone, and Carolyn away—well, the house has been so still. And now Roger’s accident, of course...” She looked down at her hands, clasped in her lap. “But things will get better. You’re both here now, and things will be better, I’m sure of it.”  
Julia’s heart went out to the other woman, struggling to find hope in what must surely have seemed a succession of illnesses and absences and, now, near tragedy. Julia didn’t doubt that Elizabeth would meet this most recent challenge with characteristic strength and resiliency, but it was awkward and uncomfortable not to be able to alleviate the pain.  
“Julia!” Carolyn stood at the drawing room’s double doors, gaping with surprise. “I thought I heard voices but --! Barnabas!” She ran to his arms for a brief welcoming embrace. “It’s so good to see you again, and especially looking so well. Willie told me you’d been very ill last summer. And, Julia,” she went over and hugged the other woman, “he told me you were quite ill, too. I’m so glad to see you doing well now. You look wonderful, in fact.”  
“She does indeed,” Barnabas smiled fondly in agreement. “And you, Carolyn, have grown even lovelier than when I last saw you. How are your studies?”  
She laughed and waggled a hand. “Who knows? The metaphysical doesn’t lend itself to ready evaluation.”  
“She’s being modest,” Elizabeth said. “Professor Stokes said the institute’s faculty was quite impressed with her ability.”  
Barnabas asked, “Have you seen the professor, by the way? We’d hoped to visit with him...”  
“He must be on sabbatical or something. We tried to call him last night and notify him of the accident to Uncle Roger, but there was no answer.”  
Elizabeth shook her head. “Elliot called here a couple of days ago, quite agitated. He virtually ordered Hallie—you remember his niece Hallie, don’t you? -- to visit relatives in Philadelphia. It was quite sudden and preemptory. Perhaps he joined her there.” She frowned. “Although, I suppose if he had planned to join her, he would have just waited and traveled with her.”  
Barnabas and Julia exchanged a quizzical glance.  
“It’s been an odd week: Elliot’s peculiar behavior, Roger’s accident, losing Hallie when she would have been such company for David...” She frowned. “Carolyn, where is...?”  
“David? He was sleeping when I looked in on him.” She turned back to Julia and Barnabas. “But it’s so nice to have you back,” Carolyn gushed, dropping the subject of Professor Stokes. “And just in time for the holidays.”  
“Knowing your great love for Collinwood, I’m still astonished you were gone for so long, Barnabas. Of course, I never doubted you would return,” Elizabeth said confidently.  
At this, Barnabas deliberately averted his eyes from Julia’s. “You know me too well, Cousin. Collinwood has always exerted... tremendous influence upon me.”  
“I’m sure the ghosts are delighted to have you back as well,” Carolyn laughed.  
“Speaking of ghosts—“ Julia said, “Willie said something about some disturbance to the cemetery...”  
“Just childish pranks, I’m sure. Roger, of course, ascribed less charitable motives and asked the sheriff to look into it for us.”  
“Were the graves themselves disturbed?” Barnabas asked, thinking of several close relatives and friends who slumbered at Eagle Hill.  
“No, nothing so ghoulish,” Elizabeth said. “Just some disfigurement to some of the grave markers. The ornamental sculptures are missing.”  
“Missing?”  
She shrugged. “A sign of the times, I’m afraid. The sheriff thought it was just teenage vandalism. Anyway, we hope the sudden turn in the weather proves a natural deterrent to more of the same.”  
From the foyer came the chiming of the ancient grandfather clock.  
“Seven!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “If we’re going to go to the hospital, we need to get started.”  
Barnabas cleared his throat. “The roads are still a little icy, so Willie will drive you and Carolyn. Julia and I will follow.” 

“It’s good to see them again, isn’t it?” Julia asked as she adjusted her seat belt.  
Barnabas released the parking brake and followed the tail-lights ahead of him, easing over snowy driveway. “It is,” he admitted.  
“Then you’re not sorry we came?” When there was no response, she prompted, “Barnabas?”  
“I’m sorry, my dear. I was thinking about Stokes.” He sighed. “And perhaps I’m remembering another journey and another homecoming. I hope I haven’t brought with my return the seeds of another disaster...”  
“Things are different now, Barnabas,” she reminded him gently. “Things will be different forever more.”  
“You are right. I have you now.”  
“We have each other,” she amended. There was a pause, then she said, “You don’t think anything is wrong with Elliot, do you?”  
“I hardly know what to think. He is unpredictable at best.” But Barnabas couldn’t shake a feeling of ominous significance in the remark to Willie... The note has come due...  
Even had there been no long-standing respect for Professor Elliot Stokes, there was still the memory of Hong Kong... How Stokes had acted when action had been necessary... acted decisively to save Julia when Barnabas was still bewildered and impotent with fear. And then there had been the anger, transferred from himself to Stokes, as it became apparent that only someone else, not he, could prevent Julia from slipping across the thin line to death.  
Stokes.  
Their last meeting had been tinged by bitterness and frustration, Stokes decrying—and justly so, Barnabas now realized—Barnabas’ neglect of Julia. In his despair and denial, Barnabas had made countercharges, ones that shamed him now, accusing Stokes of alliance with Nicholas Blair.  
Those had been dark days indeed.  
When Julia had needed him and he wasn’t able to go to her, Stokes went in his stead, ensuring she received the best treatment, attending her patiently. And whatever had motivated the aloof professor to withstand his own self-doubt in addition to Barnabas’ invective on that last terrible night—whether it had been latent heroics or just realized love unrequited, or something else altogether—Stokes had surely earned Barnabas’ eternal if shamed gratitude.  
He owed Stokes and it pained him to recall it.  
Because, apart even from Stokes’ quick action in a time of trial, he had been forced to negotiate Julia’s life at the expense of obligation to Nicholas Blair. And that struck Barnabas as a pact with the devil himself.  
His fingers tightened on the steering wheel at the thought.  
“Barnabas?”  
He gave her a sidelong glance in the semi-darkness. “I thought we would detour by the professor’s home on our return trip from the hospital.”  
“That was why you suggested taking separate vehicles!”

The hospital corridors were quiet and relatively empty, so the knot of visitors was anything but inconspicuous. At the nurse’s station, a tired woman looked up, seemingly almost grateful for the interruption of so many people. “May I help you? -- Oh, I’m sorry, Miss Stoddard, I didn’t recognize you from earlier today.” She smiled shyly. “It’s been a long shift.”  
Carolyn leaned against the counter and returned the smile. “My uncle...?”  
“A little better. The doctor wants him to spend another night in the unit, then we’ll probably move him to an ordinary room in the morning.”  
The five visitors exchanged looks of relief. Moving to an “ordinary” room was evidently a promotion.  
“Then there’s been improvement?” Elizabeth asked.  
“Mrs. Stoddard, there hasn’t been much time for improvement,” the nurse explained patiently. Then, conscious of the discomfort and confusion such a vague response afforded, she added, “But the fact that the doctor is already mentioning moving him is a very good sign. Plus, Mr. Collins has been awake intermittently over the last few hours.”  
Elizabeth exchanged an optimistic look with her daughter.  
“But he’s still restricted on how many visitors he can have,” the nurse cautioned.  
Barnabas cleared his throat. “Just you and Carolyn, then, tonight,” he said to his cousin. “We’ll wait until tomorrow to see him.”  
While Elizabeth and Carolyn walked down the corridor behind the nurse’s station, the others turned to find chairs to wait for their return.  
“Dr. Hoffman?”  
Julia turned. “Yes?”  
“I thought it was you,” the nurse said. “You probably don’t remember me, but I used to work at Wyndcliffe. Dorothy Mays.”  
“Of course, I remember you, Dorothy. But you were still at Wyndcliffe last year...”  
Nurse Mays laughed lightly. “Things changed a lot when you left, Doctor. It just didn’t seem worth the effort. And I’ve got family in this area anyway, so when this position opened...”  
Julia smiled sympathetically. “Collinsport’s gain is Wyndcliffe’s loss.”  
“Nice of you to say so. But, Doctor—if you ever decide to go back to Wyndcliffe, let me know, okay?”  
“You may be sure of it.”

Later, Barnabas and Julia drove to Professor Stokes’ house. But the house was dark and no one answered their knocks at the door, so they eventually retreated to the car and departed.  
They spent several minutes in a tense silence before Julia finally murmured, “It isn’t like him, Barnabas. Elliot doesn’t make hasty decisions and he wouldn’t begin a trip without telling someone.”  
“It is out of character,” he agreed. Privately, he was beginning to formulate a plan to learn more about the professor’s disappearance... but he would need Wille’s unique contributions and...  
“Barnabas, watch out!”  
He saw it too and hit the brakes. “Hold on!” he warned.  
Fortunately, the packed snow and ice on the roadway afforded some traction to the automobile’s tires, and Barnabas’ quick reaction had given them sufficient time to stop. Instantly upon stopping, his attention went to her.  
“Julia, you’re all right?”  
She expelled a pent-up breath of anxiety and tried to smile. “Just a little shaken up.”  
Barnabas released his door. “What did you see?”  
“Something—I don’t know what it was.”  
“I don’t know either,” he said, “but I’d like to find out. Hand me the lantern, please.”  
“Flashlight,” she corrected, almost unconsciously, as she reached into the glovebox and handed the light to him.  
Taking it, he stepped out into the snowy roadway. He paced about twelve feet in front of the car, which was where he estimated the object, whatever it had been. Obviously, it wasn’t there now.  
She joined him. “I thought I saw a figure, but it was small—like a child, or perhaps a dog.”  
“I only caught a glimpse myself, but it resembled a human figure.” He shone the light down the embankment and into the woods. “But why would anyone be out on foot on such a night? And could whoever it was have disappeared so completely in just a few seconds?”  
She shivered and took his arm. “Let’s go, Barnabas.”  
“You’re cold?”  
“Yes. But mostly I just have a feeling... that we should go... now.”  
He frowned but did not press the issue, and they went back to the car. As they drove away, a steady, stony gaze followed them.

When daylight began to force its way through Julia’s eyelids, she resorted to pulling the pillow over her eyes. But it was too late—she was awake. After several minutes of trying to recapture sleep, she finally acquiesced and rose. Barnabas still slept, so she tried to be very quiet as she dressed and left the room.   
In the kitchen, the coffee was on, though Willie himself was nowhere to be seen. She poured a cup and took it to the drawing room. The portrait of Barnabas was in its familiar place over the mantel. Sam Evans had done his finest work in that portrait; if it now seemed a little severe in the grim expression of the subject, she attributed that to the fact that Barnabas Collins himself had softened over the years. He was now loving and beloved, no longer the cruel man depicted in the portrait. She made a mental note to encourage him to sit for a new portrait—perhaps one of them both.  
Sipping at the coffee, she turned to admire the rest of the room. The wingback chair—could she ever see it and not remember the terror of Cassandra’s dream curse? She had first had the dream in that chair, during an exhausted respite between attempts at duplicating Eric Lang’s experiment.   
And the bureau! She went to it and ran a hand over the gleaming wood. Thanks to a secret compartment in this bureau, she had been alerted to the danger Barnabas faced in his journey to the past. She had been able to successfully intervene in the events of 1897, saving Barnabas from a most untimely demise at the hands of Edward Collins.  
The candelabrum was still in place, although the candles had been supplanted by the safer, more efficient glow of electric lights. She appreciated Willie’s initiative in having electricity installed in the house... but already she was nostalgic for the soft flicker of the candles, the comforting aroma of melting wax.  
Willie entered with an armload of wood. “Mornin’.” He threw the wood into the box near the hearth and turned to her, pulling off his gloves. “I see you found the coffee.”  
“Thank you. It tastes good.”  
“Yeah, well, that’s about the only thing I can do well—coffee.”  
“Then I should return the favor. Allow me to make breakfast.”  
He unbuttoned his coat and grinned. “Sure, if you wanna.”  
She led the way back to the kitchen. Willie followed, removing layers of clothing as he went.   
“Any preferences? How about an omelet?”  
“Sounds great. There’s eggs in the ‘fridge.”  
She did a slight double-take at that statement. Of course. With electricity, there was a refrigerator now. It was half-concealed in an alcove, which explained why she hadn’t seen it earlier, but it was large and modern. And now that she was looking closely, she noticed that the old wood-burning stove had been replaced with a sleek electric range combination.  
He saw her staring and shrugged. “Might as well be comfortable, right? And, besides, I figured you’d be coming home one day and would want this kind of arrangement.”  
“Oh, yes,” she nodded approvingly.  
“It’s gonna be great, you bein’ back, Julia.” Willie refilled his mug and dropped into a chair. “This house needs people, you know. It’s too quiet on its own. There’s a lot of the past to overcome.”  
She shot him a look of agreement.  
“Yeah, it’s still there. Josette’s room.” He leaned back in his chair. “But, Julia, don’t let it worry you, not at all...”  
“It doesn’t,” she lied.  
“Last night he asked me to pack that stuff up...”  
“What?”  
“Yeah, he wants me to box it up. The picture can stay, he said, but everything else—to the attic!”  
She reached out to the back of a nearby chair to steady herself. This was quite unexpected news. She had never asked Barnabas to eradicate Josette, either from this house or from his memory. In fact, she had resigned herself to the gentle ache of ever knowing that she would always be subordinate in his affections...  
But this!... This was a hopeful sign.  
Willie was watching her closely, wondering if he had done right in mentioning it. “Are you okay, Julia? I didn’t mean to upset you.”  
“I know, Willie. And you haven’t, not really.” She blinked several times, trying to force the unbidden tears from her eyes before he noticed them, too. “It’s just that—well, I wasn’t expecting to hear that.”  
Now he was truly puzzled. “I’m sorry, Julia,” he said, frowning. “I thought you would want to know... that you didn’t have to worry about Josette still bein’ on his mind.” He got up and came around to where she stood. “Julia,” he said softly, “you’re not second with him, if that’s what you think. He was absolutely frantic last summer when he learned what had happened...”  
And Willie remembered it well.  
Barnabas’ face, paled by a week’s illness, grew whiter still. “I don’t understand,” he said, although he was very much afraid that he did, in fact, understand.  
“I just told you, Barnabas—she’s in Hong Kong. That’s where Adam is, and she had to go there to treat him, so that you would get better.”  
“And the call?”  
Willie shifted his eyes downward. “That was Professor Stokes. He got a call from Julia, but she’s sick herself now. He’s gettin’ ready to go to her.”  
“No,” Barnabas muttered, trying to stand for the first time in many days.   
“What does it matter who goes to her, as long as someone does?”   
“Not the point,” Barnabas panted with the unfamiliar exertion of trying to maintain his balance. “Julia’s there—my fault. I should be the one—“  
“You can hardly stand yourself,” Willie pointed out. “The professor is a smart guy—resourceful, that’s the word. He’ll figure out something...”  
“Willie, you don’t understand. It’s my fault! And she... she cares... and I’ve never told her... that I’ve changed, that I care, too. But there hasn’t been time for me to...” He looked up. “Help me get to her, Willie.”

“For two people who care so much about each other, you don’t do a good job of talkin’ to one another.” He squeezed her arm. “You okay?”  
She tried a reassuring smile. “Okay.”  
“Good.” He went back to his chair. “Did you find the professor last night?”  
“No. His place looked deserted, in fact. It was a wasted trip—and nearly a fatal one, too.”  
“How’s that?” “We almost had an accident on the way home. There was something in the roadway and Barnabas had to brake suddenly—and if we had hit a patch of ice...” Her voice trailed off.  
“Just like Roger.” Then he caught the import of his sentence. “That was how Roger’s car crashed—he was trying to avoid hitting something in the road. Seems awful funny—odd, like, I mean.”  
“It is indeed.” They both looked over as Barnabas entered the kitchen. “Good morning, my dear.” He gave her a quick, unself-conscious kiss of greeting. Then, turning to Willie, “Good morning. You are right in wondering about the similarity of the two events. I noticed it myself. Needless to say, I look forward to speaking to Roger today about his experience.”   
“Julia’s making me an omelet.”  
He lifted an eyebrow in some private amusement. “Oh?”  
“Don’t get used to it,” she rejoined tartly. “We’ll still have to hire someone.”  
Abruptly, he said, “Willie, I need your skills this afternoon.”  
“Sure, Barnabas. What for?”  
“I want to force an entry into Professor Stokes’ cottage.”  
“What?!”  
“Barnabas, you can’t be serious!”  
His amusement deepened at the incredulous looks he received from Julia and Willie, and he would have been tempted to smile outright had not the subject demanded a certain gravity. “I am quite serious, I assure you.”  
“What is breaking into Elliot’s house going to prove, Barnabas?”  
“It will eliminate my suspicion that the professor hasn’t left his house.”  
“You think he’s just hidin’ at home?”  
“I hardly know. But it does seem unlikely that he would have departed without his car. It was visible in the garage.”  
“Maybe he flew,” Willie offered.  
“Perhaps. But he would still have to travel to the airport. And a taxi to Bangor doesn’t seem in keeping with our frugal and eminently practical professor.”  
“You have a point,” Julia conceded as she set a plate before Willie and turned to pick up the basket of eggs. “Two, over easy? Barnabas?”  
“Yes,” he said, suddenly aware of the domesticity of the scene. “That would be... fine.”  
Later, after the meal, Willie excused himself to clear snow from the front walk and from the car. Julia poured the last of the coffee into their cups and returned to her seat across from Barnabas.  
She watched him for several long moments before finally speaking. “Willie said you wanted him to pack away the things in Josette’s room.”  
“I’m surprised such a remark came up in casual conversation.” Barnabas took a sip of his coffee then pushed away the cup and saucer. “But, yes. I thought it might be better if the past was put away. There’s no place for it now.”  
“If that’s what you want, Barnabas.”  
“It is. And you should want it, too, Julia. We can’t squander a single moment of the present in worrying over the past. You made me realize that.” 

Barnabas and Julia found Roger in a private room. His right leg was encased in plaster; there were numerous fine scratches to his face and neck, and one distinctive bruise over his left brow.  
“Ah! The prodigals return,” he greeted his visitors in a voice that was weak and removed from his hearty words. “Barnabas—Julia! Good to see you both again.”  
“You seem in fine spirits, all things considered,” Julia observed. “How are you feeling?”  
“Like hell. My leg itches and I’ve no way...”  
She laughed. “Well, Doctor Pierce must have thought you were out of danger of concussion to have moved you. How are the broken ribs?”  
He made a sour face. “Broken into many pieces. Laughter and fun are forbidden for several weeks, so I’ll thank you if you’ll look a little more funereal.” He cast a glance at Barnabas. “Well, Cousin—self mutilation seems to be the extreme we must go to in order to provoke a visit from you.”  
“Being away was difficult,” Barnabas acknowledged by way of a tactful response.  
“And, Julia, when I’m again ambulatory, I’ll exercise a cousin’s right to kiss the bride.”  
“With pleasure, Roger,” she smiled. “Can we get you anything?”  
“Perhaps a damage estimate to the car. Liz and Carolyn won’t tell me a thing.”  
Julia recalled that Elizabeth had specifically put that subject off limits.  
Roger caught her expression and sighed. “That bad? It was such a little beauty...”  
“What do you recall of the accident?” Barnabas probed.  
“I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing, I can tell you that. We had recalled the boats and gotten all the employees home in advance of the storm... and I was thinking about Collinwood, silly little chores... and suddenly, there was this—this—thing in front of me.” He made a gesture with his free hand. “I wasn’t thinking about the conditions, I braked too hard and skidded right into a tree.”  
“What do you think it was you saw?”  
“I’m not sure.” Roger frowned and shook his head. “It must have been some optical illusion—or perhaps the accident addled my brain more than we thought, but for a moment...”  
“Yes?” “For a moment, I thought I saw... well, an angel.”

“Roger doesn’t strike me as the type to have a religious conversion in the middle of driving home.”  
“That would be somewhat out of character,” Barnabas agreed dryly. “Still, the description isn’t unlike what I witnessed last night.”   
“You saw an angel, too?” Willie asked from the backseat.  
“Perhaps.” He pulled the car to a stop.  
“Barnabas,” Julia began. “Elliot might have returned by now and we won’t have to resort to...”  
“I hope he has.”   
They went up to the front door and Julia knocked. When, as he had expected, there came no response, Barnabas nodded to Willie, who extracted a pouch of small tools from his pocket and went to work on the lock. After several minutes, he emitted a grunt of satisfaction and looked up. “Try it now.”  
The doorknob turned without protest and Barnabas walked in warily. “Professor Stokes?”  
The faint light of late afternoon illuminated the interior of the house. Barnabas stood for a moment, allowing his eyes to adjust while he listened for a response he was almost certain wouldn’t come. “Stokes?”  
An unexpected shadow lay across the front room and he followed the light to its source, a dim antique lamp in the professor’s paneled study. Books littered the parquet floor, and the empty spaces on the shelves on either side of the fireplace bespoke recent vacancy.  
Professor Timothy Elliot Stokes sat, unmoving, in a chair.  
Behind him, Barnabas heard an involuntary gasp from Julia.   
“Professor Stokes?” Barnabas touched the man’s shoulder. His face was slack and his gaze vacant, and there was no reaction to the visitors.  
“Do you hear me, Stokes?”  
Still no response save the slight wheeze of the professor’s breathing. At least he breathed! Recognition of the fact eased Barnabas’ immediate concern, but deepened the mystery.  
By now, Julia had overcome her momentary shock and her medical instincts had reasserted themselves. As she knelt near the professor to check vital signs, Barnabas shifted his gaze back to the room. There had been some disturbance here. Aside from the scattered books, a table had been overturned and the desk was in disarray. Although Stokes was fastidious in his personal habits, Barnabas had visited the professor often enough to know that he shared a scholar’s disdain for organization in his study. But even by Stokes’ careless standards, this room was not right.  
Barnabas reached to right the table nearest him and an object clattered to the floor. Frowning, he picked it up. A flat wooden wand, enameled glossy black and bearing a single white band on one side. An I Ching wand! He looked back to his motionless friend.  
“He’s alive but...” Julia stopped when she recognized what Barnabas held. “So that’s what...” “Is there any indication how long he’s been this way?”  
She shook her head. “I have no way of knowing.”  
Slapping the wand into his open hand, Barnabas crossed to the desk. Surely Stokes left some record, some clue as to the purpose of his solitary adventure with the I Ching. He sifted through the papers. Longhand notes on legal paper, obviously intended for some essay on psychic phenomena. Utility bills, officious looking envelopes from Chadwick College, several scraps of paper bearing names and phone numbers, a dry-cleaning receipt, a list of books—all quite ordinary clutter. Nothing that might explain the journey Stokes had undertaken.  
“Perhaps we’re worrying unnecessarily, Barnabas. Elliot has used the I Ching before.”  
“Then what accounts for this?” He spread his hands at the disarray of the room. “Surely it happened after Stokes entered the I Ching trance. If it was a thief, why are valuable artifacts still plainly displayed?”  
“Hey, Barnabas, I—“ Willie entered the study, stopping cold as he saw the professor. “What’s wrong with him?”  
Barnabas held up the wand.  
No further explanation was necessary. “Oh. Well, I’m glad he’s okay, but you better come out front. There’s something you oughta see.”  
Barnabas followed Willie outside.   
“Look.”  
But Barnabas noticed nothing and, at this moment, had no interest in obtuse guessing games. “Willie, I—“ he began impatiently before he saw what the other man meant.  
Deep, fresh scratches scored the steps. Nearby, decorative flagstones had been effectively and recently halved.  
“What does somethin’ like this, Barnabas? It can’t have been the professor, not if he’s been like that—“ he jerked his thumb over his shoulder, gesturing back to the house, “for the last few days. This is real recent.” He ran his fingertips over the sharp edge of a stone and rubbed the dust between his fingers. “See? This has been done in the last day or so.” He stood and pointed in the other direction, closer to the road. “And that’s new, too. Anyway, it wasn’t here the last time I was out this way.”  
Following the trajectory of Willie’s gesture, Barnabas saw what appeared to be a small statue. He glanced back at Willie, then paced out to better examine the object. True enough, it was a statue, or perhaps more accurately a sculpture, since it lacked the thick pedestal base customarily associated with a statue. The figure itself was small and delicate, despite being made of stone. Barnabas started toward it but recoiled when he recognized the figure.   
An angel.

The room brightened unexpectedly and he looked up.  
“There’s no need to sit in the gloom, Barnabas,” Julia chided.  
He closed the book. “I didn’t hear you come in.”  
“That’s the beauty of snow. It allows people to sneak around, undetected.” She shrugged. “Anyway, the larder is full now.”  
“Is it snowing again?”  
She nodded simply and went to him to claim an embrace as he pulled back a curtain. “I’m glad to be off the roads. Funny that I never noticed before, but Willie drives too fast.” She picked up the book Barnabas had been reading. “What have you been doing?”  
“Puzzling over a problem.”  
“Elliot?”  
“I found this book on Stokes’ desk.”  
“The Book of the Miracles.” She looked up, aware she was missing the significance.  
“It looked well-read—and recently read, as well. I thought it might yield some clue about his research, which might in turn tell us the journey he’s taken.”  
“Did it?”  
“If it holds the answer, it remains obscured to my eyes.” He took the book from her hand and put it down, then slipped his arms around her again. Sighing, he rested his cheek upon her auburn hair. “I know I resisted returning, dear Julia, but just now I’m rather glad we are here. For despite all the storminess we’ve known in this house, there is still a connection that transcends the unhappiness of the past and can still make a happy moment.”  
“Is this a happy moment, Barnabas?”  
“Whenever you are in my arms.”  
“Then you’ve stopped worrying about the past reclaiming us?” When he didn’t immediately answer, she pulled away to look at him, prompting, “Barnabas?”  
A familiar old melancholy light played in his eyes. “My fears are not easily surrendered.”  
“I’d like to help...”  
He gave a sad smile. “I’m not sure there is help for a case such as mine. But if there were, yours would be the first I would enlist.” Trying to lighten what had become a somber moment, he turned to the sideboard. “Let’s have a sherry before turning in.”  
“None for me.” When he looked askance, she hastened to add, “Too much dessert. I couldn’t bear another sweet this evening.”  
Mollified by her explanation, he poured only a glass for himself. “I should go back to Stokes’ cottage tomorrow. Surely I have overlooked something of importance.”  
“I’ll go with you,” she volunteered.  
“No.” His tone turned serious. “Julia, promise me that you will not go to Stokes’ cottage.”  
“Barnabas, he’s helpless in the I Ching trance. I should monitor his condition while he’s this way.”  
“Something is amiss there. I don’t understand it all yet, but I am certain there is danger. After all, what disturbed the wands? And, why didn’t his body disappear, as mine did when Edward Collins disturbed the hexagram during my attempted return to the future from 1897?”  
“Remember that you had a physical form in 1897. Disruption of the trance forced time to reconcile your astral self with your corporeal self.”  
“That would mean that Stokes’ astral being is now in a time where he hasn’t previously existed,” he said thoughtfully. “The far past? -- or the future...?”  
“It would seem logical. But, Barnabas—will he be able to get back, with the hexagram broken? We don’t know which he used, how to help him...”  
He clasped her hands. “Whatever path Elliot Stokes chose, he knew well its threats. And until we learn his course, there is little we can do to help.” 

The next day was bitterly cold.  
Carolyn, pacing expectantly across the hospital’s porch and glancing at her watch, snuggled deeper into the faux fur collar of her coat. Willie had promised to pick her up after he ran some errands for Barnabas and Julia, but he was very late. She was cold and annoyed at having to wait for him.  
“Carolyn Stoddard? What an unexpected pleasure!”  
She looked up and recognized Nicholas Blair. She wasn’t terribly pleased to see him—the ugly memories of all the strange happenings during his last visit to Collinsport returned in force. Still, she realized a certain civility was required.  
“Mr. Blair,” she returned formally.  
“Mister Blair? Come—call me Nicholas, as you did before.”  
“That was several years ago. And, of course, we were related then.”  
He laughed. “I’m not certain we were ever related—given my sister’s predilection for husbands, that would be far too fleeting a relationship. However, I had hoped that we would remain... friends.”  
She was uncomfortable, but not enough to want to appear deliberately rude. So, she smiled wanly in response.  
“Are you waiting for someone?”  
“Sort of.” She looked both ways, hoping Willie would appear.  
“May I give you a lift? I’m going your way – in the same direction as Collinwood, I mean.”  
She didn’t want to seem to encourage Nicholas Blair in any way, but his offer was tempting. Waiting in the cold was miserable; Willie had obviously forgotten about picking her up. If she didn’t take Nicholas’ ride, she would have to find a cab.  
“Okay.” She tried to sound a little less frosty. “Splendid!” He clapped his hands together in delight and then took her elbow. “I’ve parked right around the corner...” 

Willie pulled up in a shrieking stop and jumped from his car. He was late and Carolyn was probably going to be sore at him, but how could he have predicted the flat tire he found when he left the post office? It was strange, too, because he hadn’t noticed that the tire was low, and with all the packed snow on the roads, it was kind of hard to imagine that anything could have punctured it.  
He took the steps of the hospital’s front entrance two at a time and bolted into the lobby. He looked for Carolyn’s distinctive coat, then for her face and mane of white gold hair. But she wasn’t in view. He was turning around to look in another direction when he felt a slight tug at his sleeve.  
“You looking for someone, Mister?”  
“Yeah...”  
“Young woman? Blonde hair?”  
“Yeah, that’s her.”  
“Well, she waited for a long time. Kept coming back in here to get warm.”  
Willie winced. “Where’d she go?”  
“She left with someone. But it didn’t look like the guy she was expecting.”  
“How would you know?” It was a rude question, but Willie was frustrated with the way this stranger was doling out the information, piece by piece.  
The old man, who was missing three teeth in his smile, said, “I can tell these things, son, I can tell. Got nothing to do any more since I retired, so I just comes down here and watches all the people. You get to know what people say and how they’re gonna act—that sort of thing. Your friend, she seemed surprised by the man, like he was some long-lost person from her past.”  
“They left together? When?”  
“About ten minutes ago.”

Clutching several packages in one arm, Willie extended the other. “Mail. Looks like some stuff has been forwarded to you from overseas.”  
Barnabas looked up, but Julia took the mail and began to sort through it.   
Willie interrupted her concentration. “If you don’t think you’ll need me around for a bit, I’ve got to run over to the big house.”  
“Of course, Willie.” It was hard not to treat him like a servant when he persisted in acting like one. She turned her attention back to the mail. “Barnabas...”  
“Yes?”  
“This is from Elliot. Addressed to us in Paris.”  
He joined her on the sofa. “It must have just missed us.”  
She offered the thick parcel to him. “You open it. I—I’m not sure I...”  
He snapped the twine and peeled back the brown paper.  
“It’s a book.”  
“So it would appear,” he nodded. “But it’s more than simply a book. I think this is the professor’s private journal.”  
Julia could see the smudged cursive hand, the trademark cobalt blue ink. She sought Barnabas’ eyes. “Do you think this will explain his use of the I Ching? Will it tell us where he’s gone, and why?”  
“Perhaps—I hope so.”

“The last time I saw Miss Carolyn, she was with you, Willie Loomis!”  
“We left together, that much is right, but then we got separated. She wasn’t at the hospital when I came back to pick her up. Are you positive she didn’t come in and you just not notice her?”  
“I’ve been right here in the foyer cleaning all morning, and I would’ve noticed!” she snapped back. “Besides, Carolyn’s a grown woman, she can look after herself. She probably met another friend and went shopping or some such nonsense. She’s self-reliant... not like David...” Mrs. Johnson shook her head at something unsaid.  
Picking up the inference, Willie dropped the subject of Carolyn momentarily to ask, “What about David?”  
“Some strange fancy has grabbed the boy. He imagines he sees things. This house is no place for a child, no place at all. I told Mrs. Stoddard—“  
“What does he say he’s seen?”  
“Foolishness about great birds on the roof and statues that move...”  
Statues that –  
Alarmed, Willie abruptly turned and started up the foyer stairs, towards David’s room. By the time he reached the landing, he was almost running, unnerved by the same feeling that had so panicked him when Carolyn failed to meet him at the hospital.  
He burst into David’s room. “David?! Are you all right?”  
David looked startled by the drama of the entrance. “Willie? What are you doing here?”  
“I—I, uh, Mrs. Johnson said you’d...”  
The boy’s eyes narrowed with understanding. “Mrs. Johnson told you I’d been imagining things and you...” He began to smile. “And you believe me, don’t you?”  
“Believe what?”  
“I don’t know. Whatever it is that Mrs. Johnson told you I said.” David advanced triumphantly. “You’ve seen it, too, haven’t you?”  
Some presence of mind began to assert itself and Willie held up his palms. “Wait a minute...”  
“I read it in your eyes, Willie.”  
In frustration at the way this interrogation was turning out, Willie ran a hand through his hair. Then he spun on the teenager with the pent-up fury of his morning. “You tell me what it is, and right now!”  
David was stunned into respectful silence. Willie had never acted like this before. What was happening here, if ol’ even-tempered Willie could lose his temper?  
“Tell me,” Willie repeated harshly.  
“There’s been something on the roof at night—something real weird...”  
“Go on.”  
“I thought I was dreaming it at first. There’d be these shadows of birds on the roofline just around dusk. They reminded me of gargoyles—but Collinwood doesn’t have anything like that. And then I got the creepy feeling that maybe they knew I was watching them, and that maybe they were watching me back...”  
“And?...”  
David shook off Willie’s grip. “And then there was this—“ Striding across the room, he threw open the stained glass window and, amid a blast of Maine’s winter air, gestured outside.   
Willie leaned into the cold to inspect. The stone that lined the window aperture was deeply—and quite freshly—grooved, so that the effect was one of something having scratched at the window...  
He looked back to David and felt suddenly humbled by the boy’s experience.

“It’s too fantastic,” Julia dismissed, rising suddenly and hugging her arms to herself. “I don’t believe it. We’re assuming that Elliot’s condition is linked to this journal when, in fact, it’s probably just odd coincidence.”  
“Coincidence? Coincidence that he has plunged himself through some corridor of time?”  
“It’s far more likely that he’s experiencing some kind of—block, some kind of breakdown.”  
“You’re ready to dismiss him as mad.”  
She stiffened. “No. But based upon what we’ve just read, I’m not certain he’s behaving rationally.”  
“On that, then, we disagree, my love,” Barnabas said with a sad smile. “For in this—“ he tapped the journal, “—I see calculated action to meet a perceived threat. We may not understand all of it yet, but I am positive that Stokes has acted with a knowing deliberation. He isn’t a rash man—he wouldn’t jump to conclusions that weren’t supported by facts. And, of course, he did have a recent encounter with Blair...”  
She closed her eyes. “Nicholas Blair.”  
“Yes. With Blair involved, we must take Stokes’ journal for absolute fact. There can be no mistaking the malevolence surrounding Blair.”  
“What did Elliot call the medallion that Blair possesses?”  
“The medallion of Astaroth. It has inscribed upon it the Tetragrammaton, the four character representation of God.”  
“And that, used with the... Kashir Stone... gives the power of life?”  
“As I understand his notes, the medallion by itself can animate nonliving forms. Hence the folk tale contained in the book I found at the professor’s house yesterday.” Barnabas gestured to The Book of Miracles on the secretary. “But the Kashir Stone—used in combination with the medallion, it puts the animated forms under the control of the possessor.”  
“Is it possible that Nicholas Blair is attempting to create another race of superbeings?”  
He arched his eyebrows. “I haven’t enough information to know. The professor claims to have deceived Blair and switched stones—the rationale for his escape via the I Ching. Perhaps I should return and reexamine Stokes’ cottage...”  
“Barnabas, no!”  
Unexpectedly and too easily, he relented. “No, of course not. We inspected the place thoroughly before—no point in traversing the same ground twice. Perhaps my time would be better invested in rereading the book I found at Stokes’—it seems to have singular importance in this matter.”  
She looked mollified.  
The mantel clock chimed the afternoon hour and Julia’ hand flew to her forehead in a characteristic gesture of dismay. “Oh no! I forgot about Elizabeth! I was supposed to meet her at Collinwood thirty minutes ago, to go to the hospital. I wonder why she didn’t call.”  
“She’s likely running late herself.”  
“I have to go, Barnabas.” She went into the foyer and began putting on her coat and scarf. “I don’t expect we’ll be very long.”  
He kissed her goodbye and saw her out the door. 

For the second time that day, Nurse Dorothy Mays saw the dark curly-haired young man. He stood in the lobby, scrutinizing the placard that listed the resident medical staff.  
He seemed terribly familiar, but in a different milieu. She should know his name, but it was so hard to keep up. Patients, doctors, administrative staff. You were lucky if you could remember the names you needed today. Acquaintances from last week were ancient history, and faces from last year were practically obscured in time.  
Still, there was something special about this familiar stranger. Something that triggered memories of Wyndcliffe.  
She forgot about it until she was driving home, hours later. Then, abruptly, she remembered the name that matched the face.   
Joe Haskell.  
But what was he doing back in Collinsport?

When Willie returned to the Old House, he found Barnabas putting on his coat. “Come, Willie.”  
“Wait a minute. I got to tell you something.”  
“Tell me on the way,” Barnabas called, already out the door.   
Willie hurried to catch up. “Where are we going?”  
“Give me the keys. I’ll drive, and you can tell me whatever it is you think so important.”  
Willie complied and tossed Barnabas the car keys, but he grumbled, “It is important, Barnabas. You haven’t heard me yet.”  
Barnabas put the car in gear and accelerated. “Speak, then,” he said, not unkindly.  
“Well, first, Carolyn is missing.”  
“Missing?!”  
“Yeah. We went into town together this morning, then I got held up by a flat tire and when I went to where we were supposed to meet, she wasn’t there.”  
“Did she come home by separate means—a taxi cab, another friend, perhaps?”  
“No. That’s why I went to Collinwood as soon as I got back.”  
“Had she called the family?”  
Willie shook his head. “Uh uh. And that’s not all.” He drew a deep breath, wondering how to relate this in terms that wouldn’t sound like fantasy. “While I was there, I talked to David—he’s been real upset this week...”  
“Not surprising, considering Roger’s accident.”  
“This don’t have anythin’ to do with Roger Collins.”  
Barnabas turned and stared.   
“David’s been seein’... shapes... things... at night. He says they’re somethin’ like gargoyles, figures with wings. And there’s these grooves in the stone under his window, almost like somethin’ has been scratchin’...”  
Barnabas registered this with considerably more gravity than Willie had expected. “Figures with wings,” he echoed softly.  
“Yeah. When I heard that, and rememberin’ what we’d seen at the professor’s place... Say, where are we goin’, anyway?” Then the landscape answered Willie’s question. “We’re goin’ back to Professor Stokes’ place, aren’t we?”  
“Yes.” Barnabas’ mouth was set in a determined line. “I need more information, and short of having Stokes himself, I must depend upon any additional notes he may have left.”  
Barnabas stopped the car with a lurch. He looked to Willie. “You may wait here if you wish...”  
“Not on your life.”  
In the late afternoon shadows, Stokes was as they had left him the previous day, unaltered in expression or posture. Barnabas knelt quickly beside the portly professor to confirm respiration, then cast his gaze at Stokes’ desk. “It must be here,” he muttered to himself.  
“Indeed.”  
Willie straightened in alarm and Barnabas whipped around at the unexpected and unpleasantly familiar voice.  
“Blair!”  
Nicholas Blair stepped closer and tipped his fedora in mock greeting. “Well. Barnabas Collins. And the loyal Willie Loomis. What a pleasure that our paths should cross in this manner. I was just thinking of you.”  
“What do you want here, Blair?”  
“I think you know quite well, Mister Collins. No doubt the good professor was able to pass it to you in a vain attempt to keep what is rightfully mine.”  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  
“The Kashir Stone. Don’t deny that you know of it.”  
Barnabas wished he could deny it.  
“For the sake of those you love—for your own sake as well—give me the stone.”  
“I don’t have it,” Barnabas said truthfully.   
Blair brushed at his beard and looked thoughtful. “No. So, you haven’t.” He paused theatrically. “But I’ve no doubt you can recover it, given enough time. And—of course—given the proper incentive.”  
“What do you mean?” Barnabas growled.  
“A little... quid pro quo, shall we say? You bring me the stone tonight—here, by nine—and I’ll return something that has been carelessly mislaid.” He threw a meaningful glance at Willie. “Quite carelessly.”  
“And if I refuse?”  
“Tut. Dear Carolyn will be so disappointed if you fail her.”   
Anger surged through Willie, but a sharp look from Barnabas made him contain it.  
“You abducted Carolyn.” Barnabas stabbed a finger at the still figure of Stokes. “And you are responsible for this, in one fashion or another, as well.”  
Blair bowed in mock humility. “Only partially, I’m afraid. Professor Stokes chose the means; I but closed the door after him, so that he could not return easily.”  
Barnabas advanced but Blair jumped back, beyond his reach. “Don’t attempt anything precipitate, Mister Collins. You have far too many vulnerabilities. In fact, I must confess my surprise that you even returned to Collinsport. Your own history should have been reason enough to have stayed far away—but I was convinced that you were so enamored of the good Julia Hoffman as to never risk imperiling her...”  
Barnabas threw aside the table that separated them and Blair retreated further.   
“Have caution, Mister Collins. My patience is not inexhaustible,” the warlock hissed.  
“Nor is mine,” Barnabas returned. “Remember—tonight.” Nicholas Blair melted into the shadows.  
Rushing to pursue, Barnabas found only empty air. He clutched at it in frustration. Blair has eluded him once more—and this time, Carolyn’s life might be at stake.  
“Barnabas, how are we going to find whatever this thing is that he wants?” Willie asked, exasperated. “And if we don’t find it, what’s he gonna do to Carolyn?”  
“I don’t know.” Barnabas shook his head. “If Stokes truly had the Kashir Stone, then he must have hidden it to keep it safe.”  
“But where?”  
Barnabas grimaced. “Again, I don’t know. But there must be some clue... something. Stokes surely foresaw the inevitability of this confrontation—that’s why he mailed his journal.”  
“He didn’t write out what he did with the stone?”  
“Not precisely. He wrote that he’d managed to deny it to Blair, but that he recognized it was a feint of necessarily short term.”  
“Great,” Willie responded, glumly. “He left us one heckuva mess.”  
“Stokes worried that his journal might be intercepted, so he was somewhat obscure in his final entries.” Barnabas paced back to where the motionless professor sat. “I’ve no doubt he gave us the information we need; it’s just that I don’t recognize the form he assigned it.”

In a fleeting brush with memory, Joe Haskell traced the once familiar steps through Collinsport to the Evans cottage. But the small white clapboard house was dark. When he peered in through a window, it was obvious that the cottage had long been vacant.  
Where was Maggie?  
If he was supposed to remember, he couldn’t. The last image he had of her was of her visit to him as he lay wounded, by his own hand, at the Old House. That wasn’t a pleasant memory, either, summoning as it did conflicting feelings. He loved Maggie—but at that particular time, under the thrall of the vampire Angelique, he had been forced to deny his love for the passion of subjugation. The shame of that final encounter with Maggie still caught in his throat, still bitter even after these years.  
Behind him, his constant familiar cried, and he stopped and scooped the white cat from its camouflaged berth in the snow. But following this instinctive action, though, he was suddenly confused. Where was he to go? What was he to do?  
It was cold, and he knew it would get much colder when darkness fell, just a couple of hours from now. He pulled the cat closer.  
“What?” he asked aloud. Then he listened.  
There was no one around but the cat.

Julia returned Elizabeth to Collinwood in the gloom of the afternoon. The older woman had been much buoyed at having found Roger in an improved state and high spirits. To Julia’s keen medical eye, it seemed obvious that Roger could be safely released within a few days to continue his recuperation at home.  
As she turned the car in the drive, Julia briefly thought she saw shadows moving near the snow-draped hedge banking the house. Upon a quarter-second’s reflection, however, she decided it was her imagination. She had intended to mention the incident to Barnabas when she arrived at the Old House, but, seeing the worry on his face, the event seemed insignificant and she forgot it.  
“Roger is better?” he asked as he helped her off with her coat.  
“Much. But what has happened here?” She eyed him with concern.  
He turned away, equally uncomfortable with the truth and with the prospect of conjuring lies. Purely as the path of least resistance, he opted for the truth. “I returned to Stokes’ cottage today. After reading the journal, I had to know if we’d overlooked anything.”  
Her look was reproving, but she held her words in check. “And had we?”  
“One thing. The role of Nicholas Blair.”  
“But if what Elliot wrote is correct—wouldn’t Nicholas be far away from here by now?”  
“Only if he believed the professor had given him the Kashir Stone. And Blair is far too pragmatic to accept such a thing on faith alone. Somehow, he detected the fraud.”  
She forced a chuckle. “Barnabas, you’re talking about him as if he were...” The look of guilty acknowledgement on his face made her stop. “Oh no.”  
He took her hands. “Julia, it is as if my vague fears have been given form and substance. He has Carolyn and he’s holding her hostage against my being able to produce the stone that Stokes denied him.”  
“Carolyn! -- No! What can we do?”  
“I have a rendezvous in a few hours—by which time I expect you to be on a flight.”  
“Oh? And where am I headed?”  
“Quentin, in Paris, is the ideal retreat.”  
“Barnabas, I’m not leaving without you!”  
“Barnabas...” Willie looked in, aware he was interrupting an important and very private discussion but unable to wait any longer. “David just called. There’s something wrong at Collinwood. I’m going to go over and have a look.”  
“What is it?”  
When he stepped closer in the twilight, they saw the rifle he held under one arm. “Don’t know. Or maybe we do.” He paused. “David said... I should come right away.” He’d also said that he could hear the heavy, skipping tread of something on the roof outside his bedroom window...  
“I’ll go with you,” Barnabas said.  
“You better stay here with Julia. And besides, I’m just going for a look, not a fight. This—“ he nodded at the weapon, “won’t be much help if what David described is really there. I’ll be back in a little bit.”  
When they heard the front door close, Julia looked to Barnabas. “It’s already too late for me to leave.”  
He fixed her with his own dark stare. “No. Leaving is more important than ever now. Go upstairs and pack what you’ll need.”

Crouching near the edge of woods, Willie watched Collinwood and wished he’d worn warmer clothes. It was beginning to snow again and the wind was picking up.  
He squinted at the house, waxy yellow light shining from its windows in blatant denial of any threat, and watched closely for movement... anything out of place... anything that resembled the out-of-breath call from David Collins...  
Wait! -- what was that?...  
Instantly alert, Willie snapped his head to the right. There was motion near the French windows of the drawing room.   
He had fitted the rifle into his shoulder and leaned into the sight before caution finally claimed him. What if the shadow was David?... or Carolyn, perhaps, having somehow escaped from Nicholas Blair? No, he couldn’t risk a shot from this distance. He had to be sure... had to be sure...  
He lowered the weapon, and, still holding it at the ready, began to advance in the direction of the house. The snow, a mixed blessing, muffled his footfalls while simultaneously hindering his progress. The depth was only a few inches, but the steadiness of this snowshower made further accumulation a certainty.   
When Willie reached the spot where he’d seen the shadow, he paused. Nothing seemed out of place... but, when he dropped to a kneeling position, he saw the evidence of a disturbance in the snow. An unfamiliar grinding sound interrupted his inspection, and he looked up.   
A face of stone stared back at him, the eyes as cold and vacant as those in any monument he’d ever seen. The face was expressionless, bereft of any human feeling, and Willie fell back in surprise and horror. He jerked the rifle in front of him, intending to use it as a club if naught else, but it was lifted from his grasp before he could react.  
Seemingly without effort, the thing in front of him twisted the rifle’s muzzle and tossed the weapon aside. It turned its attention back to Willie, who scrambled backwards. But the creature moved surprisingly quickly for its stolid appearance and it reached for Willie.  
Willie couldn’t even voice a scream through his fear.  
Lifting him by his clothes, the stone figure dragged Willie back to his feet. Then, without even a pause for the exertion, the man-shape held out an envelope.  
Hesitantly, Willie reached for it. But as his hand closed on the envelope and was about to retract, the stony mitt gripped him. A brief squeeze and Willie felt excruciating pain in his hand. Just as he howled in protest, the grip released him. The figure, without any acknowledgement of the confrontation, turned and paced off.  
Willie had fallen to his knees, nursing his injured hand, but he stumbled back to his feet and ran along the dark path in the direction of the Old House.

She pulled a dress from the wardrobe. “What should I take, Barnabas? How much? Am I leaving forever, or only for the week?”  
“Every moment you are away from me will seem like forever.” He reached for her and was mildly surprised when she stepped back. “Julia?”  
“I don’t want to go, Barnabas.”  
“I know, my love.”  
She whirled on him. “I’m not a coward.”  
“Of course not.” But her vehemence puzzled him. “Why would....?”  
“And what becomes of me—of us—should something happen to you tonight?”  
“Julia.” He tried to comfort her, but again she pulled away. “You know that I’ll join you as soon as I am able. A few days, no later,” he promised, forcing a thin smile. “Julia—please. For my sake.”  
She didn’t want to surrender but it was evident he was unmovable on this point. And, besides, she knew something he didn’t that put a different light on things. Grudgingly, she knew she would have to capitulate to his reasoning and allow herself to be hurried away from Collinsport.  
For even if she could get around Barnabas’ fears for her safety, she couldn’t bring herself to possibly endanger the child she suspected she carried. It was an untenable situation for her, made the more frustrating by her uncertainty.  
“Barnabas...”  
A yell from below interrupted her. “Barnabas!”   
They both went to the landing and saw Willie leaning weakly against the door. His expression was wild. “Barnabas... something out there... something...”  
They traded a quick glance before dashing down the stairs. Barnabas extended an arm to support his friend, who looked badly in need of support, but his gesture provoked a wince of pain.  
“...Hurt me,” Willie breathed, easing the throbbing hand from his coat pocket and into view.  
“Come into the light,” Julia ordered. Willie’s hand looked discolored and swollen. She looked at him in exasperation. “Did you take a swing at something?”  
To Willie, the thought seemed comical and he actually laughed.  
To Julia, however, his laugh sounded as if it bordered on hysteria. She took his elbow, nodding for Barnabas to follow suit, and led him to the sofa. She probed gently at the swollen fleshy part of his hand. “Third and fourth metacarpals, probably fractured. I’ll need an x-ray to be sure, of course...”  
Barnabas handed a tumbler to Willie, who looked briefly askance at the mildness of the beverage. Mere water. He quickly tossed it off and held out the glass. “Brandy.”  
Over Julia’s raised eyebrow, Barnabas complied. They both watched as Willie polished off an inch of brandy in two gulps.  
“What happened?” Barnabas prompted.  
“All around Collinwood... they’re surrounded, David and the others.”  
“Surrounded?”  
“Yeah, the house is ringed by statues.”  
“Statues?” Julia shook her head. Perhaps she had neglected to account for the possibility of head injury...  
“Like what we saw at Professor Stokes’ house, Barnabas,” Willie breathed, placing his good hand on the other man’s sleeve for emphasis. “But this one was... alive... it moved... it—“ he gestured to his broken hand. “It did this.”  
“Alive!” Barnabas whispered. “Then Blair has the secret of the medallion of which Stokes wrote!”  
“There’s more. He... it... whatever it was, gave me this.” Willie extracted the envelope, now crumpled and damp from his headlong flight back to the Old House.  
Barnabas took the envelope into the light. “‘Barnabas Collins,’” he read, then he paused and looked at his wife and friend. He slipped out the sheet inside and read it, silently at first, then aloud, for the benefit of the others. “‘Additional inducement for you to contemplate, my old enemy. Nicholas Blair.’”  
“How do we fight stone, Barnabas?” Julia asked in exasperation.  
“We have only one course of action, and that is to deny the Kashir Stone to Nicholas Blair. And then we must find a way to take the Medallion of Astaroth from him.”  
“Say, why is that stone such a big deal?” Willie asked. “I mean, it seems that Nicholas Blair ain’t havin’ no trouble makin’ statues move on his own.”  
“According to Stokes’ journal, the medallion is limited in its power. The Kashir Stone, when placed into the medallion’s center, concentrates and magnifies that power. Whoever possessed both would be nearly invincible.” Barnabas looked up. “Stokes risked his life twice over to prevent Blair from acquiring the Stone: he first deceived Blair, then took the uncertain escape of the I Ching.”  
“Well, an x-ray is a certainty. Come on, Willie, I’ll drive.”  
Willie and Barnabas exchanged a long look, then Barnabas turned to his wife. “Julia, there’s no time for that now. You have to leave.”  
“Surely you don’t expect that I’ll just leave without having gotten Willie the appropriate care,” she protested.  
“I’ll be okay, Julia. Barnabas is right -- you gotta go.”  
She glared at the pair of them, then finally sighed, defeated. “At least, Willie, let me give you something for the pain.”  
“Not if it makes me woozy.”  
“There’s nothing that strong in my bag. Remember? -- I’m not in practice. But I did keep a mild painkiller for an emergency. It’s only a little stronger than aspirin, and I promise you will stay clear-headed. I’ll go get it.”  
When she returned, after she gave him the promised tablets, she offered a bowl of ice and a towel. “Better keep some ice on it until you...” She lost her voice, thinking of the encounter that lay ahead for them. Somewhat absently, she resumed, “It will reduce the swelling.” Then, abruptly, she fled the room.  
Barnabas followed her upstairs.  
“Julia. Call me from the airport.”  
Her eyes flashed. “If you’ll promise to be here for my call. I can’t bear the thought of calling and you not answering, Barnabas.”  
“I’ll be here, my dearest.”  
She moved into his arms and, while he gently rocked her, tears stained her face.

Julia sat on the edge of the bed and listened to Barnabas and Willie leave for Stokes’ cottage. For a few tantalizing minutes, she entertained the idea of staying right here, in Collinsport, and making her rightful and customary contribution. Then, reality intervened and she knew she must keep her promise to Barnabas. More was at stake than simply another confrontation with Nicholas Blair... another crisis at Collinwood...  
She knew she should have told Barnabas what she suspected, that their love might truly yield the impossible: a child. But there had been no time. And it could prove a distracting factor in his showdown with Blair.  
There would still be time.   
She snapped closed the small overnight suitcase. Eschewing most of her luggage was her way of proclaiming confidence that this crisis would soon be averted and normalcy returned to Collinwood. She longed for that day.  
Enough! she declared to herself. She was merely delaying the inevitable. With a final sad look around the room, she extinguished the lights and carried the suitcase down the stairs. She retrieved her purse and was reaching for her coat when she missed the car keys. Exasperated at her absent-mindedness, she went back up the stairs to the bedroom and felt the base of the lamp, searching for the switch. A hand manacled her wrist.  
“So glad you came back, Doctor.”

The car’s headlights shattered the tranquil shadows that lay across the snowy lawn before the cottage. Barnabas watched the shadows fly apart and, fleetingly, thought he saw one that didn’t move as expected. It seemed to hold no threat, however, and he chalked it up to his wariness.  
Despite his broken hand, Willie insisted on entering Stokes’ house ahead of Barnabas. He carried a heavy flashlight in his good hand, and shone the beam of light in a broad swath through the darkness. “No one’s here, Barnabas.”  
“Not yet,” Barnabas answered. “That will surely change, for I do not believe Nicholas Blair will miss this rendezvous. We may as well turn on a light.”  
Even lighted, the cottage remained eerily appointed. Scattered books and debris still littered the parquet floor; Stokes still sat, immobile, in his chair, his body mute witness to the scene his astral self had fled.  
What do you know that could help me now? Barnabas stared hard at the professor, trying to will him into speaking. Then he sighed with futility and looked around the room. His eyes fell upon the I Ching wand he’d left on the desk.  
Perhaps—  
\-- Perhaps, if Blair had closed the astral door behind Stokes... perhaps Barnabas could reopen it.  
He gathered the wands and tossed them on the table in front of the professor. He had no way of knowing the exact hexagram the other man had used to escape into time, but it was possible that fate, the power of the ancient I Ching itself, would intervene. When he arranged the wands, the topmost wand was solid black, the one beneath it was broken with a slash of white enamel, another solid, followed by two more with the white mark...

“You don’t remember my voice, Doctor Hoffman?” The strong hands vising her own forced her across the room to the mirror. “Do you remember now?”  
Julia looked in the mirror.  
Joe Haskell?  
How could it be? That was years earlier! It hadn’t occurred to her to check to see if he was still at Wyndcliffe. Truthfully, she hadn’t checked on him for the last year, so grim was the prognosis at the time of her last visit.  
He twisted her arm and a fresh chill ran through her.  
“I thought you’d remember.”  
“Joe.” She fought to keep the fear from her voice. “I remember. Let me go and we’ll talk.”  
He jerked her arm tighter. “We’ll talk anyway, Doctor Hoffman. Or is that your name now?”  
She decided it was best to feign ignorance, not to volunteer any information. “What do you mean?”  
“I heard you got married. I heard you’re a Collins now.” He fairly spat out the name.  
How could her marriage to Barnabas have any significance to Joe? Julia couldn’t imagine, but she remained wary. She would let him talk. Perhaps she could get him to relax enough to release her.  
“What, no questions? You always had lots of questions, as I remember, all those medical questions -- How are we doing today? -- Can we remember anything else, Joe?” He laughed harshly. “Don’t you even want to know what I’m doing here?”  
She found her voice for that one. “Yes. I do want to know...”  
He spun her to face him. “And I – we - intend for you to know!”  
“Joe, you were getting the best care...”  
He backhanded her and watched her pain and surprise. “‘The best care!’” he mocked. “Well, I’ve got the best care now. The very best.” He cast a quick glance over his shoulder.  
Following his gaze, Julia saw a cat, white even in the room’s dusk. Blue diamond eyes glittered back at her.  
Julia tasted the blood his blow brought. Have to stall for time, have to keep him talking, have to figure a way to get through to him...  
“What’s the matter? You don’t like a little shock treatment? I thought you were quite fond of it -- or maybe you just like giving it to other people.”  
“I never ordered electroshock therapy for you!”   
“Shut up!” he screamed back. He threw her against the bureau and then abruptly broke off to rub hard at his temples. “I – we - aren’t here to debate with you.” He walked over to the cat and stroked it in silence.  
Julia was just calculating the distance to the door when he turned.  
“I want you to know what it’s like, locked away from the ones you love. I want you to feel the same loneliness I felt, see the pain in their eyes when they come to visit you...”  
“Joe, I wasn’t responsible for your illness. Seeing Chris...”  
“No!” he roared, reaching for her arm and jerking her upright again. “It wasn’t Chris! You and Barnabas, you tried to make me believe that something was wrong with Chris. Something was wrong, but not with Chris -- it was what you were doing to Chris.”   
“We tried to help Chris. Barnabas...”  
He tightened his grasp, hurting her. “Barnabas! Always blaming others for his crimes! He won’t get away with it! For me, for Chris, for Maggie, for...” He stopped, choking on his rage. Again, he sought Angelique’s eyes.   
Julia watched as Joe broke off, mid-sentence, to exchange another strange glance with that white feline. Suddenly, he seemed to straighten, as if resolved.  
She was equally resolved. If she was going to escape, his momentary distraction might be her only opportunity. She raced to the door, and her fingers were within inches... millimeters... of closing on the doorknob when hands came crashing down around her. He whirled her around and threw her back into the room.  
She fought to focus. Fright combined with exertion to make her breathing labored and heavy. But even over the roar of her own breathing, she could hear an animal’s hiss.  
The cat.  
Unexpectedly, Joe took a step away from where she had fallen on the carpet. “Yes, yes,” he murmured, turning.  
And Julia knew, knew even when the distance between them grew, that his eyes were seeking a weapon. Realizing she had no hope of surviving from a prone position, she fought to stand.  
“Doctor,” he soothed, turning once more to face her. One arm was extended to her, the other hung at his side, not quite concealing the syringe in his hand. “Julia. I want you to know what it’s like. There’s no point in fighting. You can’t get away. I won’t hurt you. I just... want you to know.... what it feels like...” He reached for her.

“Your promptness is refreshing.” Nicholas Blair appeared, seemingly from nowhere. “I recall a dinner party where you once kept me waiting all night.” He looked to Willie. “And you brought a guest. How nice.”  
“Remove them,” Barnabas said quietly.  
“Remove --?” Blair laughed. “Oh, you’re referring to my army.”  
“Whatever. You will remove it.”  
Blair pulled in his chin. “Alas, it would not be to my advantage to do so. Surely you see that. But once you give me the Kashir Stone, I will remove the threat from Collinwood.”  
“You will do so even without the stone.”  
Blair struck a casual pose. “Mr. Collins, you are a very tiresome creature. Every time I encounter you, I am threatened.”  
“The threat is genuine,” Barnabas promised.  
“Really? Once again, you’ve blundered into a situation without appreciation of the consequences.” Blair’s lips curled into a sneer. “I give you one final opportunity to surrender that which is rightfully mine.”  
“I don’t have the stone. But if I did, I would still refuse it to you.”  
“Then you are too late, friend Collins -- too late in refusing, too late in your involvement. The wheel has been set into motion, and as it turns, it brings not only the test I need of my power -- the destruction of your precious Collinwood -- but your own destruction as well. Mark my words -- this is your final day! Look well upon the sunlight fading, for it shall be your last glimpse.”  
Involuntarily, Barnabas’ eyes went to the window. Even though it was heavily draped -- even though, in contradiction to Blair’s melodrama, the sun had sunk hours earlier -- Barnabas couldn’t not react to the implicit threat. The darkness would, for him, be ever too close, too real...   
“Do you remember how it begins?” Blair demanded. “The death of one who was to you like a brother -- a love, irretrievably lost -- and, finally, the embrace of the night.” He consulted his watch. “Your wife’s fate has been decided by now. Pity. It is up to me to supply the rest.” Suddenly, he brandished a pistol, and Barnabas tensed, expecting the worst.  
But his imagination was lacking. He hadn’t really considered the worst.  
Abruptly, Blair whirled and fired. The blow of the slug slammed Willie Loomis to the wall, where he hung, suspended, for a surprised moment, his mouth whispering unheard words of comprehension. Then he collapsed.  
“Willie! No!”  
Barnabas rushed to him and turned him over. Willie’s face still registered the shock of the assault. A well of blood in the center of his chest rose once and fell -- and then was still.  
“Willie!” Barnabas clutched Willie’s shoulders, denying the obvious.  
“How it begins, Barnabas Collins--” Blair laughed behind him, “Surely you recall how it must inevitably end.”  
Barnabas turned to face the warlock. “You shall not leave this room with your life, Blair, even if it requires mine in return.”  
“An ambitious plan, but I can’t permit such nobility.” Now before Blair, used as a shield, was Carolyn Stoddard. Her gaze was dull and empty, bespeaking the influence of either drugs or Blair’s mind control technique. “You’re out of time, Collins. There are only a few minutes to wait before the messenger of your fate arrives. Then you can spend eternity contemplating your mistakes.”  
“Never!” Barnabas promised in a low growl. The trauma of Willie’s murder made him less heedful of Blair’s threat.   
Windows flew open at Barnabas’ utterance, and an icy blast blew within.  
Never...  
Blair looked to the windows with surprise. “What trick is this?” he began, but his words were blotted out by the roar of the wind.  
...Never...  
A lamp fell, plunging the room into darkness. Snow swirled in, borne on a strange and unfamiliar current.  
...Never...  
The structure of the house and all its contents dissolved. Barnabas stood on a roadway, one unrecognizable to him. The sky was bright with heavy clouds and the woods a dim silhouette in an eerie, freakish light. Snow was falling, steadily, but without the frenzied tempo that punctuated the confrontation a few moments before.  
What had happened? Was Blair responsible? Where was he, and how was he to get back to Stokes’ cottage? He had to—  
With a wince of anguish, he remembered Willie. He had to get back, had to avenge Willie...  
“Je suis ravi de vous connaitre—encore.” I’m pleased that we meet again.  
Barnabas whirled to the source of the voice.   
A tall, dark man stood several yards behind him. “Who --?”  
There was a deep chuckle and a sudden shift to ordinary, albeit accented, English. “But I thought you remembered?” the man protested. “After all, it was you who summoned me.”  
“Summoned you?”  
“Exactement, Monsieur Collins.”  
With that phrase, Barnabas recalled a fleeting encounter months before, half a world distant. “Jamais,” he muttered. Never...   
The now-familiar stranger smiled acknowledgement.  
But Barnabas remained mystified.   
Jamais sobered. “I am here to assist, monsieur. I have but little to offer -- my name, which has gained you the entrance to this portal and respite from your trial.”  
“Help? How can you --?”   
“Have I not removed you from your encounter? There is no danger in this place.” He gestured to the serene landscape around them. “This is a temporal waystation — a crossroads, you would say.”  
“But Willie! Blair shot him, murdered him.” Barnabas shook his head, overwhelmed by a sense of tragedy and isolation. “Stokes is beyond reach, lost in a labyrinth of time. And Julia... No! Blair is wrong. Julia left — she, at least, is safe.”  
A few moments of silence passed between them. Then Jamais said softly, “I am limited in how I can assist. I cannot protect your wife, nor restore your friend. But if I could ...lend ... you...”  
Impatiently, Barnabas threw up a dismissive hand. He must be dreaming this absurd encounter.  
“Non, mon ami,” Jamais urged. “You do not understand fully what it is I offer. A chance, tres petite, to end the story differently. This I can do, monsieur. Look around, if you doubt. Is this place not alien to you? If you do not give credence to me, do you not trust your senses? How were you transported here, if not at my desire?”  
“I—I don’t know.” He felt both grief and confusion at the admission. “I don’t know why I’m here, no more than I know why Nicholas Blair killed Willie instead of me.”  
“Events are still in flux, monsieur. The warlock, he wished to recreate certain moments from your past...”  
“How do you --?”  
A faint smile of amusement. “You told me yourself of your past, though you may not recall it. Once is too much to endure such calamities; we must prevent your reliving them.” Jamais shrugged. “Alors, we must save your friend. Ah, yes, it can be done. Only you can do it—I can but lend you a few minutes.”  
“Lend?”  
“Permit you to... relive.”  
Barnabas was wary. “Why?”  
Another enigmatic smile. “I wish to see a new story, monsieur. As I told your wife in our previous meeting, I collect... stories.”  
“Stories? Not books?”  
“Ah, non. The stories of lives are far richer than any fiction, monsieur. And few lives I’ve encountered have the... richness... of yours. No, Monsieur Collins — my motives are base. I am no angel errant, performing kind deeds for the pleasure they bring. I expect payment for the opportunity I offer you.” He spread his hands. “The rest of the story. Your story.”  
Had not the man looked so solemn, Barnabas might have assumed he was being made the butt of some private folly. But the circumstances of this encounter belied that. And Jamais’ demeanor was hardly that of a practical joker. In a split-second capitulation, Barnabas gave himself over to the other man’s rationale.  
“What... what must I do?”  
“Act, monsieur. I shall return you to the time just before the warlock murdered your friend. How to prevent it from occurring again —ah, that must fall to you! As I said before, events are in flux and there is still opportunity to change the course of what will pass.”  
“I’m ready.”  
Jamais gave a perfunctory nod. “Oui. Let us...”  
“Wait,” Barnabas interrupted with a new realization. “Your payment — how will I...?”  
“Ah, monsieur!” The amused expression returned to Jamais’ ebony face. “We shall worry about that another day. Now, you return.” He gestured down the road before them.   
Barnabas saw Stokes’ cottage ahead. He looked back to Jamais, uncertain. No words passed between them. Then, with either resignation or resolve, Barnabas squared his shoulders and strode quickly through a curtain of snow.

When Barnabas re-entered Stokes’ house, he was instantly attuned to the possibility before him. He strode to Stokes’ study where his hand hovered over a table, then, seamlessly, slid the final I Ching wand into its fated place. Again, he thought how much Stokes could assist.  
Barnabas moved to the other end of the room, his time-appointed place for the confrontation to come. When Willie entered the room, he had to restrain himself from reacting to the resurrection. With supreme self-control, he merely nodded to his friend.  
“Your promptness is refreshing.” Nicholas Blair materialized again, as before. “I recall a dinner party where you once kept me waiting all night. And you brought a guest. How nice.”  
Willie edged fatally closer at Blair’s acknowledgement.  
“Where is Carolyn?” Barnabas demanded. He intended to keep Blair off balance.   
Blair looked surprised, but only momentarily. “She is safe, as my guest.”  
“Your prisoner, you mean.”  
Barnabas could hear Willie shifting his weight, preparing some assault. The warlock no doubt had concealed his weapon in the heavy coat he wore. Barnabas thought furiously how to prevent a recurrence of that other confrontation.  
Blair shrugged. “She shall be returned if you have complied with my... request.”  
Barnabas hesitated, meaningfully, he hoped. “The Kashir Stone.”  
“Yes, yes.” Blair rubbed his gloves hands together in anticipatory delight. “Give it to me.”  
Barnabas pulled a smooth stone from his coat. It looked far too small to contain such power, too nondescript to be the object of such pursuit, too insignificant to be worthy of the lives that now hung in the balance. He held it on his palm before Blair.  
“Quick, give it to me!” Blair demanded.  
But Barnabas did not react. “Where is Carolyn?”  
“After you give me the Kashir Stone...”  
Barnabas’ fingers closed around the stone. “Carolyn first.”  
“Oh, very well,” Blair snarled. He gestured to the thick draperies at the broad bay window. “There. Now, give me the stone.”  
Willie dashed to where Blair had indicated and pulled back the heavy cloth. Carolyn was behind, dazed and uncomprehending. Willie hastily pulled her away.  
“The stone, Collins,” Blair demanded.  
Barnabas waited until Willie and Carolyn were in a corner at the other side of the room. Comparative safety. He turned back to Blair. “Payment is due,” he agreed, but with a meaning different from the man who stood opposite him.  
Too late Blair realized the bluff. He took a tentative step backwards, but Barnabas overtook and seized him. Blair struck out once before being subdued. Moving with surety of purpose, Barnabas found the pistol secreted in the other man’s jacket and disarmed him. One fate was averted.  
Blair didn’t flinch, however. His eyes narrowed as he regarded Barnabas. “You’ve overplayed your hand.”  
“I think not.”  
“Indeed? Collinwood is still in peril and I alone control the statuary...” He displayed a glittering medallion. “Children of Ahriman, hear me: Aemaer gorath...!”  
A weapon came down upon Blair’s wrist, breaking his grasp. The medallion clattered to the floor. He glowered in pain and Barnabas turned in surprise to see Willie, wielding a poker.  
“You think you’ve escaped your fate, Collins, but you haven’t. Even as we struggle here, there’s another--”  
Barnabas moved his hands to vise the other man’s throat. “I’ve tired of your games, Blair, and I’ve tired of the prices you seek to exact.” He tightened his hold.  
Blair pried at Barnabas’ grasp, but the hold was relentless, iron in its determination. “Wait--” he whispered hoarsely. “I can...”  
“Your time for bargaining is over.”  
“— help your --”  
“... No more threats...”  
Blair’s eyes bulged and showed white.  
“Barnabas!” Willie hadn’t seen this side of Barnabas for years, and the sight of it made him uneasy. While he didn’t wish Blair completely restored, he wasn’t eager to see a throttling, either.  
Barnabas dragged the man nearer. “Why did you help us in Hong Kong?”  
“To assure... Professor Stokes’... cooperation,” Blair choked. “And because... in my own way... I have a regard...”   
“Don’t!” Barnabas cautioned, renewing the vise. “There is much about you I do not understand, Nicholas Blair, but I cannot believe... I do not believe that you...”  
“No?” Blair gurgled from the strangling grip. “Then you will have yourself to blame when --”  
“Let him go, Barnabas...” Willie was at his elbow and sounded much as he had on another night, the previous summer, when he sought to break another angry engagement.  
Barnabas threw the warlock away from him. “Blame? You haven’t any conception!”  
Blair panted weakly from the floor, but his eyes burned. “You fool,” he whispered. “You pathetic fool. There isn’t one thing that’s happened to you that you haven’t deserved—but you always manage to elude the final responsibility.” He brought the flat of his hand between them. “You won’t this time, Collins. Attend to your wife,” he hissed.  
Before them, Blair’s corporeal form dissolved into nothingness.

When the needle pierced her skin, she flinched uncontrollably. Julia, struck by a strange and fatalistic sense of the irony of the situation, looked deeply into Joe’s eyes. “What...?”  
“You should know — you prescribed it often enough for me.”  
She sagged in Joe’s grasp and, following an inordinately long period, she felt the needle withdrawn. Joe guided her to the bed and pushed her down upon it. She was aware that she was trembling, but she grasped the edge of the bed to conceal it.  
“Why?” she whispered.  
“You can’t guess, Doctor? Don’t you want to experience it — that surrender of sense and reason, putting your very existence in the control of others? Think of it as a kindness, Doctor, a mercy of a sort. After all, when Nicholas has finished with Barnabas...” He stopped, as if just realizing he’d blurted something she wasn’t yet intended to know.   
Joe paced away from her, but he didn’t look pleased, as might have been expected. Suddenly, he appeared frightened and unhappy. “It’s done!” he yelled, dashing the syringe to the cold, empty hearth.  
At this last statement, curiously, he seemed to be addressing the cat.  
Julia shook her head. Joe wasn’t a man merely bent on revenge; he was still seriously disturbed, that was evident. But as irrational as he appeared, there was little avenue of escape open to her. And, now that he’d injected her with something (since she wasn’t dead already, she assumed it was some tranquilizer), Julia wondered at her fitness to break away from her captor.  
No doubt this was the poetic justice Joe desired.  
But what was meant by the cryptic reference to Barnabas?  
Her expression must have betrayed her, for Joe, in yet another abrupt mood shift, began to laugh. “’Those who will not learn from history are doomed to repeat it,’” he intoned. “I read that once. Barnabas hasn’t learned, so he has to go back into the darkness...”  
Darkness?  
Joe leveled his gaze at her. “And you have to learn, too, Julia. How fragile a mind is, and how vulnerable...”  
A crash came from below and they exchanged sharp glances to gauge the other’s reaction. Joe first looked panicked, then recovered enough to cover Julia’s mouth with his hand. “Not a sound,” he warned.  
“Barnabas! Julia!” A pause. “Willie!”  
It was David’s voice. Somehow, he had escaped the threat that encircled Collinwood, and he had come for help.  
“Davy,” Joe whispered in recognition. This wasn’t part of the plan. He shot a quick look to his familiar. What now?  
The cat’s lapis eyes stared fiercely back at him in response.  
Of course.  
Joe leaned close to Julia. “Get rid of him. Get him out of here, for his sake — and your own.” So saying, he removed his hand. “I’ll be right behind you.”  
She gave a brief nod, noticing for the first time a sudden lightheadedness. She stumbled going to the stairs and Joe placed her hand on the wooden railing to steady her; he was careful to stay in the shadows.  
“Barnabas! Julia!”  
“David,” she called back. “David, I’m coming.”  
The teen’s face was fraught with tension and exertion. “Julia! I got out without them seeing me. We’ve got to help Aunt Elizabeth and Mrs. Johnson...” He broke off and stared at her. “Julia, are you all right?”  
“Fine, David,” she lied. Her ears were ringing and her pulse was racing. As much as she desperately wanted and needed help, she knew that she had to play along with Joe to assure David’s safety.  
“Where’s Barnabas?”  
“Barnabas — he, uh, went to Professor Stokes’ cottage.”  
“And Willie?” he asked, his hope for rescue beginning to dim.  
“Willie went with him. They went together.” Some still-vigilant part of her mind recognized the redundancy of her words and, worse, the slight slurring that was beginning to affect her speech.  
“Are you sure everything’s okay, Julia?” He looked around but all appeared normal. He was relaxing his guard again when a board creaked from the stairs. The look on Julia’s face was unmistakable fear. David, with a lightning reaction, propelled her to the front door. “Go! I’ll catch up!”  
Joe roared down the stairs. David was shocked to see him but prepared to fend him off. “Run, Julia,” he pushed her out the door. He paused long enough to fling the wooden coat-rack at Joe’s feet. Joe stumbled over it and fell, but close enough to grab at David’s jacket sleeve.  
David slipped from Joe’s grasp and bolted through the door. Outside, he was a little surprised that Julia’s car sat silent and cold — somehow, he’d imagined that any fleeing adult would automatically head for an automobile. He ran past the vehicle, thinking that the old mausoleum might be his best sanctuary. At least, he was sure that neither Joe nor those... those things... knew how to access the secret room.   
He hoped that Julia would make the same connection and that they could take shelter together.

“Barnabas?”   
Barnabas and Willie stared dumbly at each other until they realized, almost simultaneously, the source of the voice.  
Behind them, in a dim corner of the study, Elliot Stokes took a tentative step before faltering. “Barnabas? I—thought you had...”  
Barnabas rushed to support the other man. “Stokes!” he cried, appalled at the professor’s confused condition.  
Stokes looked up, a frown cutting through the disorientation in his features. He ran a hand across his forehead. Perhaps his mind was playing tricks on him. It must be the journey — the journey... So confusing...  
Focusing once more on the concerned face above him, he willed away the reverie. Some inner voice kept reminding him of the importance of the passing time. “Barnabas, you shouldn’t have returned to Collinsport...”  
“Blair is gone,” Barnabas said, intending reassurance. “We’ve recovered the medallion.”  
“The Medallion of Astaroth — he claimed it as his prize for having given the serum that saved Julia.” Stokes frowned again. “You say you have it?”  
“Right here.” Willie handed it to the professor with assumed reverence. He next passed a handkerchief to Barnabas. “You’re bleeding,” he advised, indicating a thin stream of blood from the corner of the other man’s mouth, where Blair’s fist had left its mark.  
Barnabas daubed ineffectually at his wound.  
Stokes’ eyes widened at the sight of the medallion and he put out a hand to touch Barnabas’ arm. “Excellent. But Julia...?”  
The man’s confusion was distressing to see. “She is safe, Elliot.”  
“Why did she run? How could—“  
“Stokes, listen to me!” Barnabas hardened his heart against the professor’s wandering mind. He had to force the answers he needed; there was no time for compassion. “Tell us about the medallion’s power. How can we reverse it? All of Collinwood is in danger.”  
“You did not receive my journal? I mailed it to you...”  
“Yes, yes, but we didn’t understand. Your meaning was so obscure.”  
“The power of life, Barnabas,” Stokes wheezed. “The medallion enables its possessor to command even stone.”  
“How can it be reversed?”  
Darkness crawled before Stokes’ eyes and he had to shake his head to clear his vision. “Have I been only dreaming, then?” he asked, seemingly addressing the question to himself. “Have I been only an old man who has fallen asleep before the fire?” For the first time, his eyes took in the disarray of the room. He passed a hand over his face and felt the stubble of a week’s growth. “But it wasn’t a dream. I’ve seen the future, Barnabas. I escaped through the I Ching — the only way I could think to escape Blair. He was trying to force me... to be his confederate.” He paused. “But I saw... Barnabas, I saw everything! And Julia --” His voice trailed off and he stared hard at Barnabas. “Why did she run from you?”  
Barnabas turned away. He didn’t know what words to use to focus the professor on the pressing problem at hand, the secrets of the medallion he had wrested from Blair.  
In a chair at the opposite end of the room, Carolyn seemed to have returned to herself. Willie looked up when Barnabas approached.  
“Whatever control he had over her, it’s fadin’ now.”  
“Good.” It would be a comfort to have another clear head among them. He crouched beside her. “Carolyn, can you tell us where Nicholas is now?”  
“I didn’t...” Her words were cut off by a sharp and unexpected grimace of pain.  
“Carolyn!”  
But to Willie, something about the episode seemed familiar. He put a restraining hand on Barnabas’ shoulder. “Wait,” he whispered.  
Her eyes flew open wide and her expression was one of fear. “Not there! Not that! Stop her!” Her gaze focused on Barnabas. “Stop her!”  
“Stop what? Carolyn, I don’t understand. Tell me what you see, what it is that terrifies you...”  
“Widow’s Hill... Stop her, you must stop her...”  
“Stop who?”  
“Julia.” Professor Stokes had joined them.   
“Julia?”   
Stokes reached out a hand and moved shakily toward Barnabas. “Last year — you were right, Barnabas. I should never have trusted Julia’s life to Blair.”  
“But she lives!”  
“Barnabas, this was all planned, orchestrated, part of a bigger plan, in which we have all been used as pawns.”  
Growing frustrated with the enigma of the professor’s conversation, Barnabas raged, “What are you talking about, Stokes?”  
“Julia, of course!” he snapped back. “She has been ensnared in this web from the beginning.”   
“No! I left her at the Old House. She was going to pack and take a flight to Paris tonight...”  
Stokes paled visibly. “Just as it happened in the future...”  
“As what happened? Speak quickly!”  
Stokes’ face contorted. “Something horrible. She ran from you, Barnabas...”  
Ran?  
“Why?”  
“She was terrified — and you chased her... and she fell...”  
He didn’t have to say anything further; Barnabas felt a choking sense of deja vu. “Here.” He thrust the telephone at the other man. “Call the Old House.”  
“Barnabas, you can’t go! Send Willie, or me. Don’t risk it becoming reality...”  
Barnabas shook his head, his emotion too close to the surface to risk words.  
But Stokes stared at him as if he was mad. “Barnabas! For the love of God, man! -- if it hasn’t happened, why would you precipitate it?”  
“No!” he barked sharply. “No! It won’t end that way, not this time.”  
“You confound me, Barnabas. After all we have been through...”  
“Because of it.” Barnabas strode to the door. “Call!” he commanded.  
“If you fail,” Stokes warned darkly, “she dies.”  
“If I fail, my life shall be over as well.”

Eventually, the torturous path forced Julia to cease running. She had no trouble seeing, for it was a night bright with the snow that had fallen and was falling still; but the path was obscured. The usual landmarks were denuded or draped in snow. No way to know where to go. She leaned against a tree, confused, beginning to feel the cold.  
Why had she been running?  
There had been some urgency to her flight... but what --?  
A branch seized her sleeve. As she jerked away in alarm, she suddenly remembered.  
She had been to the mausoleum. She had met Ben Stokes there. At her insistence, they had loosened the chains and opened the coffin... But Barnabas wasn’t as she expected to find him — he was a maddened monster... And he would have killed her, too, had Ben not...  
But — no!   
That was history... all in the past. There was a new future, something had happened to change things...  
Barnabas was human now...   
But what had Joe meant when he said that Barnabas would go back into darkness? Did he mean a return to the vampire’s existence? How could that be?  
Nicholas.  
Julia swallowed hard at the realization that Joe’s words weren’t meaningless braggadocio. There was menace, genuine and personal, to what he had said. Instantly she thought how to warn Barnabas... how to deflect the threat...  
A cat’s cry.   
Julia looked up and into the fierce eyes that glittered opposite. During that gaze, a transformation occurred, the cat’s head becoming that of a woman... recognizable... familiar... but hateful to recall.  
“You.”   
“We meet again.”   
“You did this... made Joe...”  
Angelique smirked. “Joe has his own grudges. I was able to... channel... his anger to a focus that suited me: Your destruction.”  
Julia was too weary to respond.  
Her silence seemed to amuse the other woman. “My! I’ve left you speechless! What an achievement! In our previous encounters, you’ve always had so much to say.” She leaned closer. “Listen well, now, dear Julia -- for this will be our final meeting. I cannot maintain this form long so I must be brief. Briefer than I would like, for there is much -- truly much -- that I’ve longed to say.”  
“Your brevity will be a mercy, anyway,” Julia said, the strange thickness of her speech obscuring the sarcastic tone she’d intended.  
The witch returned, imperiously, “Nicholas intervened last summer, but you’ll have no protection this time. He’s returned my curse to Barnabas...”  
“But you yourself lifted the curse--!”  
“I lifted it for a lie! For the lie that he and I had forgiven each other! You know it was a lie, you who witnessed so much. And knowing all of what had transpired, you... married... him. He belongs to me, Julia -- you shall never have him!”  
“I do have him.”  
“Perhaps -- for the moment,” Angelique mused, “perhaps as his wife -- perhaps as his widow by now. You surely know that when the curse is returned, he will seek you first. You -- and that secret you bear.”  
“No!” Julia gave a strangled cry. How could Angelique know? No one knew! And Julia recognized the keen truth in her threat. If Barnabas once more fell prey to the vampire curse, they could hope for the reprieve of a cure. Even if he drew her down into the darkness with him, she could hope that she would yet be able to develop a treatment, a plan to return them to normal existence. But the child --! How could she protect their child, and prevent it from becoming a creature of death before it even breathed?  
“I see you understand me. Good. I want you to understand.” Angelique studied her for a moment. “Are you tired, Julia?”  
In her horror and confusion, Julia lowered her guard. “Yes... tired,” she mumbled.  
“Too tired to deal with new nightmares, with new fears?”  
“Barnabas wouldn’t hurt me...”  
“Are you certain?”  
Angelique’s words conjured a vision of indescribable terror, and the drug that still coursed through Julia’s system had so corrupted her logic as to make it seem plausible. Desolation swept through her. Barnabas had been right — nothing waited for them at Collinwood but tragedy.  
The plaintive howl of dogs, eerily familiar, seemed to echo through the night.  
“He’ll be coming soon, Julia,” Angelique whispered. “Coming to claim you for the night...”  
Julia backed away. “No...”  
“Just a few moments...!”  
Summoning some last reserve of denial, Julia fled.  
Angelique’s laughter followed her.

Barnabas burst through the doors of the Old House. A picture crashed from the foyer wall, punctuating the fury of his entrance. “Julia!” he roared. “Julia!”  
He dashed to the top of the stairs and into their bedroom. A light was on -- perhaps...   
Upon entering, he saw immediately the disarray of an earlier struggle. Near the fireplace were a syringe and a broken ampoule. He retrieved the tiny bottle and ran from the room. From the head of the stairs he saw a shadow dart across the foyer and he rushed to intercept it.   
“Who --?!” he challenged the woman as he grabbed her roughly by the arm.  
She looked quite startled. “Oh, Mr. Collins! I’m sorry for just walking in, but the door was open...” She caught the lack of comprehension on his face. “Dorothy Mays – from the Collinsport Hospital. Remember?”  
He released his hold but still eyed her with suspicion.  
“I’m probably making a mess of this, but I just wanted to tell Doctor... er, Mrs. Collins that I’d seen... and I couldn’t reach her by telephone, so I thought I’d drive out...” Her eyes took in the disarray of the foyer and his guardedness. “I’m too late, aren’t I? I can see that something has happened...”  
“You were coming to warn Julia?”  
“Yes. It seemed quite important that I let her know...”  
“Tell me.”  
“I saw a former patient of hers today -- Joe Haskell. Do you know him? He didn’t do anything suspicious or threatening, he didn’t say anything -- I don’t even think he recognized me from Wyndcliffe. But something about seeing him again made me worry. Too coincidental, you know? I called Wyndcliffe but didn’t learn much. Joe Haskell had ‘left,’ and that can translate as normal discharge or as an euphemism for ‘escape.’” She paused while this registered. “Mr. Collins?”  
Color had drained from Barnabas’ face. “Julia isn’t here.” He pulled the crushed ampoule from his jacket pocket and passed it to her. “I found this on the floor upstairs.”  
Dorothy took the vial and held it to the light. “Thioridazine. An anti-psychotic -- very strong.”  
“Is it dangerous?”  
“Not necessarily -- not by itself. There are no permanent effects, if that’s what you mean. But there’s disorientation, and there can be a very... emotional... response. It can cause feelings of paranoia, delusions. Whoever was treated with this drug should be supervised. He -- or she -- won’t be thinking rationally.”  
Barnabas nodded, his thoughts racing. If Joe had been here, if he had injected Julia with this drug, where were they now? Julia’s car was still parked outside. He had seen no evidence of another vehicle, but it was dark outside and had been snowing heavily, so it was difficult to know with certainty.  
He looked to the stout oaken doors and thought of the path beyond them. How could he exclude Carolyn’s vision? He felt sick at heart, not wanting to precipitate a tragedy -- another tragedy -- but unable to merely pace the floor and wait. Despite his misgivings, he knew he had to act to prevent the future from happening.  
There was only one way he could respond.  
“I must go. Will you wait here?”  
“Is it safe?” She looked anxious.  
“I’m not sure.”  
“That’s honest,” she admitted, laconically. She seemed to consider. “Mr. Collins, I acted on my instincts tonight -- it seems only right that I allow you to act on yours. I’ll wait for her here.” Dorothy Mays began unbuttoning her coat.  
Barnabas gave a nod of gratitude. Then, turning, he left the house and went back into the winter storm.

As she neared the edge of the woods, Julia’s thoughts grew more tangled.  
Barnabas wouldn’t hurt her.  
Angelique was lying. She had nothing to gain in telling the truth.  
Still... Nicholas Blair’s involvement made it seem possible.  
Julia was frightened and cold. She couldn’t think of a safe refuge. The Old House — but if Angelique’s threat was true, that was the first place he would seek her. Collinwood, the second, even if she dared the seige of the statuary. She could escape to Quentin, in Paris — but that necessitated getting to an airport, which in turn meant returning to the Old House for the car.  
She couldn’t go there.  
He would be there.  
The winter wind whipped, making her eyes water with pain. She hugged her arms to herself. Where could she find sanctuary this bitter night?

The wind’s fury had increased and the shriek of it surrounded him. He pulled the collar of his caped coat closer. He longed to call for Julia, but worried that, in doing so, he might bring Stokes’ dark glimpse of the future closer to reality. With an effort, he restrained himself and pressed on through the dark, snowy path.  
It had been a summer’s night the last time he traced these steps, on a similar mission. He had failed that night, failed desperately, reaching the height of Widow’s Hill only to frighten Josette into a terror-filled, cataclysmic decision. He had caused Josette’s death, not merely witnessed it. Would he arrive in time tonight, or precipitate another tragedy?  
No!  
As Jamais had said, he must change the story. Give it a different ending. He had done so for Willie Loomis this very night.   
Could he do it this time as well?  
Was he allotted another opportunity to alter the course of events? He had borrowed upon the prerogative of gods; would they countenance another transgression?  
What lie could have been forced upon Julia to make her fear him?   
Perhaps it was no lie, a small voice echoed. Julia was smart enough to recognize a lie, strong enough to resist it, despite the ruthless means Joe had used. Whatever contrivance had been forced on her, it would’ve had to have had the ring of truth to it, or Julia wouldn’t believe it.  
What lie could be so plausible?  
Every threat Blair had posed this night harked back to events over one hundred and fifty years old. Assuming that Joe was in league with Blair and employing the same tactics, what could he have revealed that would have so disturbed Julia as to compel her on this path? What would make her doubt him?  
Reaching the clearing, he stopped and scanned the landscape. Snow still fell in a steady fashion. He could make out a figure a hundred yards or more ahead of him. The distance and conditions made it impossible to know for certain, but it had to be Julia. He desperately wanted to run to her, but forced himself to merely take long strides. He couldn’t know what had transpired, if she was still in the thrall of some drug-induced psychosis.  
In swift and measured steps, Barnabas began to close the distance. But he still dared not utter a cry. Carolyn’s ominous premonition had opened a new dark reservoir of fear within him.  
He was now within range and could affirm that it was indeed Julia ahead of him. She didn’t seem aware of his presence yet, but it was an inevitable few moments away, for she had reached the flattened perch that was Widows’ Hill.  
She stopped.   
He stopped as well.  
From her gathered shoulders, he could see the toll exacted by prolonged exposure to the elements. She twisted her head in rapid, bird-like movements, looking all around. It was almost as if she expected to be followed...  
Instinctively, he spoke her name. “Julia—“  
She spun around, her expression wild with fear.   
At once, he was terrified by her reaction. “Julia! Please, please don’t be frightened! You’re safe! I—I won’t come any closer.”  
She backed away from him, edging toward the precipice...  
“No!” he screamed into the wind.   
The sound of his fury forced her back another step.  
“Please, Julia--” He extended one hand but kept it close to his body, hoping that it could not be perceived as a threatening gesture. “Come away from this place. I give you my word you will be safe -- you have nothing to fear from me.”  
To Julia, he didn’t seem changed. Despite the urgency in his voice, it was still the voice of the man who had held her in love only a few hours earlier. Through the confusion, she recognized that much. Surely Angelique had lied — Barnabas was still human. No need to fear him. No need to fear on behalf of the child...  
She took a tentative step toward him, looking into his face as she moved. At that moment, an errant strand of moonlight fell upon him from a break in the clouds above.  
In horror, she pointed at him. “Your face—the blood—the blood—“  
His hand went immediately to one corner of his mouth. Blair’s blow had drawn blood and the rust of it must still be visible. Suddenly, the lie to which Julia had fallen victim was obvious...  
“Julia, no! I have not changed — I have not reverted to what I once was.”  
The wind, rather than carrying away his words, now seemed to amplify them.  
But her fear was so great as to make her oblivious to his protestation. She stepped back — then back again, now within inches of the cliff’s thin edge...  
He willed himself to stand fast and not leap to stay her — nothing would so surely panic her into that final step. His voice, when he found it, was low and possessed of enforced calm. “I am not that which you fear. I’ll turn away before I allow harm to come to you.” He forced himself back two steps. “This place has no part in our lives, Julia. Time has stilled whatever role it may once have had in the lives... in the deaths... of others. Let there be no ghostly siren-call to the past, no awful fates repeated. Let us put the tragedies — all of them — to rest.” His voice cracked. “Julia, please come away from this terrible place.”  
She began to yield when a sudden commotion stopped her.  
Shrieking with fury, a white cat materialized from the darkness and flew at Barnabas. It clawed and spat, and he reached to grab it, wincing as its talons raked his hand. He locked both hands around the animal and carried it, squirming and hissing, to the bony ridge of the cliff. He needed but one brief glimpse of the flashing blue eyes to know the animal’s true identity.  
“Die, damn you! Die — and rest your hellish soul!” He flung it into the blackness beyond the cliff. An angry yowl echoed back and then was stilled by the sound of the waves upon the rocks below.  
Julia had followed the battle closely. Either the anxiety of the struggle or time itself was diluting the drug’s effect on her, and she felt the dizzying panic recede. A sudden gust of wind reminded her of her perilous stance and she retreated several steps from the precipice.   
“Barnabas,” she whispered cautiously, still frightened but so cold and miserable as to be willing to surrender. “Barnabas...”  
He reached to pull her into his arms. She resisted for a brief moment, gazing at him in sadness and regret. She became aware of warmth; he had removed his coat and slipped it over her shoulders. Then he lifted her and carried her down the hill.  
When he stopped, she opened her eyes again. Willie opened the rear door of the waiting car and helped Barnabas ease Julia inside.   
“Barnabas—“  
His expression was still set in a tragic frown of concern. “Shhhh. We’re going home.” He resumed gently chaffing her icy hands.  
Both front car doors opened and two others climbed in. Julia started at the sudden noise before she recognized the new occupants. “Willie... Carolyn...”  
“We’ll have you home in a few minutes, Julia, don’t you worry,” Willie promised, putting the already-running car into gear. He looked to Barnabas. “We took the professor to the Old House.”  
Julia’s fingers tightened on Barnabas’ lapel. “Elliot?...”  
“He’s all right — he’s back.”  
She seemed to relax and he cradled her against his shoulder.  
Willie made good his word and sped them back home. There, Barnabas carried her to the sofa. Carolyn swaddled her in blankets until she protested, then soon returned with a steaming mug of tea.  
Dorothy Mays examined Julia’s eyes, took her pulse, and asked a few questions to establish orientation. Finally, she looked to Barnabas. “Keep her quiet for a bit and I think she’ll be fine. What happened to --?”  
“I haven’t any idea. Julia was alone when I found her.”  
She nodded and picked up her coat. “I’ve got to go, but I’ll give a call tomorrow morning and make sure she’s still all right.” Willie saw her to the foyer.  
From his anxious station near the fireplace, Elliot Stokes lumbered forward. “You continue to astound me, Barnabas, with your ability to bend fate to your will.”  
“As before, Professor, you minimize your own inestimable contribution.”  
“Perhaps.”  
“I need your help yet again, Stokes. Collinwood: Elizabeth, David...”  
At this, Julia looked up. “David escaped. He came here, helped me get away...”  
“Where is he now?” Willie asked.  
She shook her head in anguish. “I don’t remember. We became... separated...”  
“Barnabas,” Stokes interrupted. “The statuary can be controlled by the medallion you took from Blair. Pass it over the creature’s breast, from right to left.”  
“We must find David,” Carolyn urged.  
Willie looked to her and then to Barnabas, torn.  
Barnabas knew he needed Willie’s company on his own mission yet, he found himself saying, “Go with Carolyn. Find David and return here.” He looked at Stokes. “Stay with Julia.”  
“And you?”  
“Collinwood.”  
Stokes paused. “You shouldn’t go alone, Barnabas.”  
“There isn’t much choice.”  
“Allow me, then, to return an old ally.” Stokes gestured to the foyer, where a silver handled cane leaned in a familiar corner. “Its value was wasted on me, anyway. My arthritis is hardly that bad...”  
Barnabas couldn’t think of a reply.  
“And have caution,” Stokes added gravely.  
The snow had ceased. For the fourth time that long night, Barnabas returned to the cold night air and a sky that was in motion, ridding itself of the bright, low clouds in favor of a clear expanse of infinite stars. There was a half moon, and the brightness of the fallen snow made stealth impossible. He wondered at the sensory abilities of the things that now guarded Collinwood, and whether their stone bodies made them less responsive. Could he hope to reach each figure, undetected and unchallenged, to pass the medallion and reverse its magic?  
How many stone creatures were there? Willie had described the house as surrounded, but, when pressed, could recall distinctly only two: the giant who had confronted him and another shadowy shape on the far side of the estate. Was there more to Blair’s “army”?  
Collinwood was ablaze with light. It was as if Elizabeth and Mrs. Johnson had illuminated every light in the mansion to ward off the evil outside.   
Warily, he strode past the edge of the woods, into the clearing that demarked the estate’s lawns. He carried the Medallion of Astaroth in one hand and his familiar cane, his only real weapon, in the other.  
His eyes registered movement on the periphery. He froze, trying to determine if there was a threat and, if so, the direction. He looked around but saw only the circling of a solitary flying bird. It seemed innocuous... and yet oddly disturbing. He watched as it came around. It appeared quite large in size. Then it disappeared from sight.  
He turned back to the path. Suddenly, a whoosh of wings brushed by him. The bird — what he had taken as a mere bird — climbed and wheeled against the sky. It seemed to hang suspended in the sky, watching, then it began another long circle.  
Warily, he kept his eyes upon it as it came around. Some deep inner sense of alarm continued to warn him that something... was... not... right...  
The great bird dove again. Without the cover of the woods, Barnabas realized his vulnerability. He thought to run, then abandoned the idea. It was too far to safety. He whirled back around to see the winged night terror bearing down on him. In a flash, he remembered Blair’s veiled threat about a revisitation of the curse. Was it possible that this was Blair’s harbinger? Some giant bat?  
No. This was distinctly a bird, however large and aggressive.  
The creature was closing on him.  
He thought to do the unexpected.  
In the final millisecond before collision, he ran in the direction of the flying threat. The winged thing had descended too far to adjust for the changed position of its victim, so with another close brush, it flew past Barnabas and beyond the tree line.  
Barnabas knew that somewhere in the darkness the thing was gathering speed for a third attack. Craning to scan the heavens, he ran toward the hedge. It was the nearest barrier he could put between himself and the thing that pursued. But, still many yards away, he saw the black form against the night sky. It seemed to be growing in size, telling him he had been targeted and that the bird was on its lethal approach.  
He stopped. Throwing down his cane, he withdrew the pistol he’d wrested from Nicholas Blair and took careful aim. He fired. Still the creature bore down upon him. He steeled himself to remain fast for as long as possible, making himself a broad target—then he leaped to one side, thrusting out his medallion-draped hand as he did so.  
A peculiar thing happened.  
The bird never recovered from its dive. The angle of attack buried it in the snow. Barnabas ran to where it fell. Only chunks of stone came to hand. He picked up one fragment. It was smooth and formed. It was also cleanly and recently cleaved. Could this be the same thing that, only moments before, had been hurling at him from the sky?  
He dropped the fragment and approached the house.  
An uncustomary shadow stood apart from the hedge. Willie’s giant.  
The figure was huge, towering over Barnabas by several feet. Its features seemed fleetingly familiar, as if it could be recognized and identified in another setting.  
The giant golem stepped toward Barnabas.  
Barnabas immediately perceived the creature as menacing in strength and stature but not particularly swift or cunning. He had but to get close enough to use the medallion...  
The creature swung suddenly and Barnabas, once more, felt the sharp breeze of a missed blow. He jumped again to escape another whizzing assault. The third blow caught him by surprise, though, and he was thrown against the tight, sharp branches of the hedge. Excruciating pain shot from his shoulder and down his left arm.  
Hunkered down in agony, Barnabas watched in awe as the stone man advanced. Its expressionless face was devoid of intent, its vacuous eyes bereft of true consciousness, yet aware on some level. But it was relentless in movement.  
Barnabas knew his cane was of no use against such an enemy. Likewise, the medallion was of limited value—in order to use it, he would have to get far closer to this deadly creature than he warranted was safe. There must be another way...  
The creature’s movements, though smoothly executed, were lumbering, as appropriate for a giant. Barnabas saw opportunity in that heavy gait.  
He rushed head-on at the giant and slammed the stone with his other shoulder. The golem reached for him but was thwarted by basic forces of nature—momentum and gravity—as it toppled backward. Barnabas fell, too, but quickly rolled away from the fallen giant. As the stone creature kicked ineffectually in the snow, trying to regain its balance, Barnabas ran forward and dragged the medallion by its chain over the figure’s chest. Its motions ceased.  
Barnabas knelt in the snow beside the stone man for several minutes. His shoulder still smoldered with pain from the golem’s blow. Finally, he reached for his cane and used it to help pull himself to his feet.   
At this moment, he felt particularly indignant at the possibility of additional creatures left to battle.   
Nonetheless, he continued along the perimeter of the house. He came to another corner and squared it, seeing nothing. The back of the estate was the most worrisome, as it was crowded with shadowed hedges, terraces, and, several hundred feet away, in the midst of the garden, the gazebo. Still, nothing menaced him, and he passed the last corner and proceeded along the west side of the mansion.  
Suddenly, he stopped.  
An angel stood in repose on the snowy front lawn. Barnabas recognized this particular angel as one that had formerly reposed at Eagle Hill cemetery, ever-rising from a tomb, for over a century.  
The figure was perfectly still. Its wings were spread wide over its shoulders, its hands were clasped before it. It didn’t move.  
Barnabas took a tentative step forward.  
A flutter of wind seemed to ripple through the wings.  
Barnabas took another step and braced himself.  
The angel, green-gray in the reflected snow, shuddered and came to life. But this was no thick giant, moving with exaggerated motions. This angel moved with relentless and fluid precision toward Barnabas.  
When he saw the assault coming, Barnabas lashed out with his cane. His counter-attack scarcely registered on the stony visage that opposed him. There was no concern, no fear — not even any seeming understanding that Barnabas had dared strike.   
The stone angel threw out a hand and Barnabas was knocked viciously against the stone wall of the mansion. His foe struck again, aiming with deadly force, but, in another close call, Barnabas twisted away from the point of impact. Sand and tiny shards of stone from the wall showered against his face.  
He brought the medallion from his pocket, but the winged figure seized his arm as he brought it up, and the medallion slipped from his fingers, falling to the ground. Barnabas’ arm felt as though in a vise. He tried to wrest away but was locked in the angel’s grasp. He cried out with pain and the hopelessness of being able to strike a meaningful blow.  
“Barnabas!” Willie’s anxious shout was never more welcome.  
“Quick — the medallion — it’s fallen!”  
Willie fumbled in the snow, then found and raised the relic and passed it before the demonic angel. Its stony grip released Barnabas, who fell back against the wall.  
“You okay?”  
There was a missed beat.  
“Barnabas --?”  
Then, finally, “Yes.”  
Willie looked around warily. “Are there any others?”  
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.” Barnabas swallowed. He felt light-headed and weak. “Let’s check inside.”  
Still carrying the medallion, Willie retrieved Barnabas’ cane as well and led Barnabas to the main entrance of the house.  
“Willie — Barnabas!” Elizabeth’s voice greeted them. “Thank God you’re here!”  
Mrs. Johnson came closer, concern showing on her face. “Mister Barnabas...”  
The last thing Barnabas heard was Willie’s voice. “Mrs. Johnson, help me, I think he’s falling—“

He woke in a sunny room at Collinwood.  
“I was beginning to worry.” Contrary to that sentiment, Julia actually looked relieved. She eased onto the edge of the bed. “How’s the arm?”  
A pause, as he tested it. “It hurts.”  
“Well, it doesn’t seem to be broken. But from what Willie has told me happened last night, I’d be grateful even if it were.”  
“And you?”  
“Terrible headache this morning, but... I feel lucky. It could have turned out differently.” She seemed to hesitate. “Barnabas, there’s something you need to know, why I behaved as I did last night...”  
He tried to pull himself to a sitting position but his shoulder throbbed so that he abandoned the attempt. “Julia, don’t. There’s no need... The way I mistreated you during the early part of our acquaintance... the drug... it must have been easy to believe...”  
“Barnabas, let me finish. I’m not afraid of you, even that way. The thioridazine confused me and Angelique --”  
“I thought as much!”  
“— she confused me further. But I never ran in fear for myself, Barnabas. I wanted to... protect... our child....”  
“Our... ?”  
“I was going to tell you, but events swept us up and suddenly there was no time.” She looked suddenly distant and sad. “I don’t know what effect the thioridazine may have... Dorothy said I should see a doctor...”  
“You’re a doctor.”  
“I have no experience to draw upon. Not with this.” Her eyes met his. “Would it make you happy, Barnabas?”  
He took her hand. “Beyond that, my love. I already have happiness.”  
“Good.” She closed her eyes and laid her cheek against his. “I didn’t know if I could give you a child. I still don’t. You would have done better to have married a younger woman. Having a child at my age!...”  
He silenced her by placing his fingers on her lips. “None of that, now. I married the woman I loved. A child is but a dividend of that love.” Her kissed her hair. “I won’t have the mother of my son spoken ill of.”  
She laughed. “You’re so certain it’s a boy?”  
“I don’t know if I dare hope for a daughter — one with the fire and wit and beauty of her mother. No, a son seems far more likely.” He threw back the covers, wincing as the pain caught up to his movements. “Perhaps you would have done better to have married a younger man...”  
“You had a terrible night, Barnabas. A day in bed would do you good. You need rest.”  
“We need to see that doctor. Today. Now.”

At the Old House several days later, Professor T. Elliot Stokes looked sanguine as he viewed Barnabas and Willie.   
“Rather a like a pair of bookends, aren’t you?”   
Barnabas’ right arm was, at Julia’s insistence, in a sling and Willie’s hand was sheathed in plaster.  
“Still, I suppose we should regard ourselves fortunate.” His gaze went to Julia, sitting in the chair nearest the fire and wearing an expression of bemused indulgence. Especially fortunate, he thought. But he said, “Has there been any word of Joe Haskell?”  
“He was found in the morning, wandering in the woods close to town. Disoriented, suffering from exposure.” Julia sighed. “Dorothy said she thought he’d probably be transferred back to Wyndcliffe next week. For now, he’s in the Collinsport Hospital, sedated and under round-the-clock observation.” She didn’t add that she thought there would be no further aggression from Joe. Angelique was gone — perhaps for good this time —and Julia knew that Joe’s menace only had its source in the witch.  
Barnabas crossed to stand nearer Julia, his back to the fire.  
“And David? He’s well, I take it? Elizabeth told me he had hidden himself in the Collins family crypt. Remarkably audacious for a youngster. And, as things happened, it was a shrewd maneuver, if mightily uncomfortable.” Stokes sipped his sherry and tried to fend off an involuntary shiver. He didn’t want to dwell upon the boy’s experience: the cold, dark hours spent waiting in a tomb...  
“It was just a wild chance that we looked there,” Willie put in, looking anxious to change the subject. He brightened with remembering something. “That’s what I meant to tell you earlier. Roger’s comin’ home tomorrow. Carolyn called this afternoon to tell us.”  
“He’s that improved?”  
“That is good news!” Julia smiled. “Excuse me, but I ought to check on a few things.”   
When she left, Stokes gestured after her. “She’s really all right...”  
Barnabas permitted himself an infrequent smile. “Her resilience amazes all of us. But I made certain she saw a doctor. Fortunately, the drug had no lasting harm. In fact, the doctor was far more concerned about the prolonged exposure to the cold, but even that seems to have had no ill effect.”  
“Haskell must be badly deranged. I can’t even imagine what would have precipitated such an outrageous attack...”  
“She was his doctor at the time he was committed.”  
“You suggest some resentment, some anger at his treatment? That would be a possible motivation, I suppose,” he admitted. “But from my vantage point... what I experienced in my trip to the future... I didn’t expect that menace. I saw only...”  
“Only me.”  
Stokes met Barnabas’ gaze. “If it matters, Barnabas, I’m glad to have been proven wrong.”  
Barnabas gave a dry chuckle. “I’m glad too.” Pause. “Professor, there’s another man who figures prominently in these events. I wonder —have you ever ran across a reference to a man named Jamais. Antoine Jamais.”  
“The name doesn’t sound familiar. French?”  
“Moroccan.”  
“How is he involved in this affair?”  
“Let us say that he... insinuated... himself into events.”  
“Intriguing. Tell me more.”  
“He called himself a collector. Our paths crossed in Hong Kong. Then again, later....” Barnabas shrugged. He couldn’t explain much more about Jamais without revealing Willie’s death and subsequent resurrection, and this he was loathe to do in Willie’s company. “Perhaps mere chance encounters. But let’s not let it intrude on this night.”  
Stokes put down his empty sherry glass. “I shall look forward to hearing more. But, Barnabas, if you’re now wondering how greatly ‘mere chance’ has affected the outcome of this affair — whether destiny is so fragile as to be decided purely by random possibility... Well, all I can say is that I wish I knew. There’s no discounting an element of luck — and, in the events of the last year, we seem to have had more than our share of fortuitous happenstance. But most of those events were directed events. You forged them — you, and Willie, and Julia, and I. Adam and Blair and Haskell, too, in their own ways.”  
Barnabas nodded.  
“We can discuss it more fully later, if you wish,” Stokes added, perhaps sensing the other’s mood. “In any event, did Willie tell you how we disposed of the medallion and the Kashir Stone this afternoon?”  
“I threw them into the sea.” Willie looked pleased with himself. “They’re lost forever now.” He frowned at this. “Seems like a waste, though.”  
The professor chuckled. “The medallion was mere dross, Willie. It wasn’t golden — it was never as it appeared.”  
“There’s something you can explain to me,” Barnabas said. “How were you able to deny the stone to Blair when he first came to you for it? And then, how were you able to keep it hidden for so long?”  
“A very common deception, entirely unworthy of your admiration. I simply exchanged the stone with another before I handed it to Blair.”  
“But what did you do with it? Surely you knew he would search your house—“  
“I knew. I wish he hadn’t been so destructive in his rage, however—my study is permanently scarred from the experience, I’m afraid.” He looked up, unable to prolong the suspense longer without antagonizing his listeners. “Do you remember that my journal said that the secret of the stone was in the book?”  
“I assumed that you meant The Book of Miracles. But I never made the right connection, never found your hiding place..”  
“Obviously, I had hoped that you would take a very... literal... meaning. The stone was concealed within the binding.”  
“Then it was within Blair’s grasp all along!” Willie said.  
“And my own.” The irony of the revelation didn’t seem to sit well with Barnabas.  
Julia returned. “Well, it’s a poor offering for guests, but dinner is ready.”  
In the old-fashioned dining room, lit only by a small fire and candles, Julia offered a bottle of sparkling wine to the professor. “With Willie and Barnabas indisposed, I’m afraid you must do the honors, Elliot.”  
“My pleasure.” He drew out the cork and filled four stemmed glasses. Clearing his throat, he said, “Year’s end seems an appropriate time to consider and measure the events of the year past. I confess that, at the conclusion of this year, I am wearier but happier for the way things have turned out. Parts of this year were very dark, indeed.”  
“If that is your attempt at a toast, Stokes — I forbid you to ever try again!” Barnabas handed a glass of wine to Julia and one to Willie. “And, in any case, as host, I’ll reserve for myself the privilege of declaring a toast.” He looked to Julia. “But first, an announcement. My dear?”  
“We wanted you both to know that we won’t be leaving again. I’ve convinced Barnabas that the only place to raise a Collins is in Collinsport...”  
Stokes and Willie exchanged a glance. Raise a Collins?  
“Willie, there’s carpentry work ahead for you. We’ll be wanting to turn the blue room into a nursery.”  
There was another moment while this registered.  
“You mean --? Hey, that’s great!”  
“Julia, Barnabas, my heartiest congratulations!”  
Barnabas lifted his wine. “Now for that toast. To friends known–“ he gestured to Willie and the professor, “and to those unknown.” Mentally, he acknowledged the elusive Jamais. “We proceed into the new year through your grace.”  
_Pour acquit._


End file.
